


Every Colour But Red

by HLine



Series: Children of the Force [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Every Colour but Red 2.0 at your service!, Family Feels, Family Issues, Gen, Genocide, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, adults taking (non-sexual) advantage of children, i'm basically sticking everything I like into a blender and hitting the on button, me playing fast and loose with Mandalorian history, seriously i'm taking full advantage of the relative emptiness of canon Mando stuff, warnings for discussion of child kidnapping, warnings will be updated as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:19:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HLine/pseuds/HLine
Summary: Mandalore. A planet famous for its warriors and fractious history with outside powers.If you ask the Empire, though, that's all that it is these days; history. Now, after the Grand Inquisitor and Viceroy Saxon put down the Fifth Uprising, Mandalore stands as a shining example of an Imperial planet, supplying the soldiers needed to spread the Empire's power across the Galaxy.Sabine doesn't like to think about the state of her home system. After what she did and saw during the so-called Fifth Uprising, she'd be happy to never go back there again. But Mandalore isn't done with her just yet, and now she has to face her past if she wants to save her family from the monsters of her memories.





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s a trap.”

The blue, jittering hologram of Bo-Katan Kryze, head of House Kryze, turned her head and glared at the other holographic figures; one in particular, the one that had just spoken, seemed to have especially drawn her ire. “Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious, Ordo. Of course it’s a damned trap.”

The heavily-muscled figure of Jorge Ordo, head of House Ordo, shifted, his hologram jumping as he crossed his arms. “Well someone had to damned well say it,” he snapped. “We were just going in circles!”

Kal Skirata, head of House Skirata, rolled his eyes as Fenn Shysa, head of House Shysa, sighed. Rhok Fett, head of House Fett, said and did nothing at all, except flick his eyes around the group gathered through hologram. 

“He has a point, you know,” Shysa said wearily.

“Fine,” Kryze snapped, rolling her eyes, “he’s right, it is a trap, but it’s not helping us figure out how Saxon realized that he would need a trap in the first place!”

“Really?” Ordo raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think that it needed to be figured out at all.” He meaningfully looked over at the only figure in their meeting that had yet to speak or react.

Fenn Rau, leader of the Protectors of Concord Dawn, forced himself to keep his face still as the other five turned to look at him.

Normally, the six of them would never have found themselves in a situation such as this. Tough times make for odd bedfellows, though. After the Fifth Mandalorian Uprising and its brutal suppression, Rau and the other heads of the remaining Great Houses of Mandalore had found themselves falling into an alliance of necessity against the Empire. An alliance that had been kept secret in the name of not giving the Viceroy of Mandalore, Gar Saxon, an excuse to wipe them all out. 

Except that now, that secret was apparently out. All of them had received invitations (more like commands, Fenn thought sourly) to come to the annual celebration of the Empire ending the Duchess’ War on Sundari, something that had never been demanded of them before. And considering the discussions that had been flying along the back-channels of their communications, Fenn was not the only one suspicious of the invitation’s timing.

Leaning against the holoprojector table, he merely raised an eyebrow back at the older man’s image, tapping a finger against the metal. “If you have something to say, Ordo,” he said, proud at the evenness of his voice, “then say it. You were the one just complaining about going in circles.”

Ordo sneered. “Fine. If you had just pulled back a little on your interrogation of the Imperial Academies before we were ready -”

Fenn slammed his palm against the holoprojector. “He is my nephew!” he snapped. “My only living family! And you would have me abandon him to the Empire’s tender mercies?!”

“Rau, no one said that —” Shysa began, holding up his hands.

“Yes, Ordo damn well did!” Fenn snarled, cutting him off. “Our children are going missing, you damned di’kuts! Missing in the care of our enemies and you would have us present a karking petition to that skanah!”

“What else are we to do, Rau?” Skirata asked, jumping feet-first into the argument and narrowing his eyes. “There have been five uprisings and not a single one has succeeded. The last one in particular, if your memory has become spotty, ended with Sundari practically depopulated, and that was just about schooling. Just a petition is about as far as we can go without giving Saxon an excuse for another purge.”

Fenn snarled. “So you’d just have us abandon the missing children.”

Skirata’s eyes were nearly slits. His hologram, despite being only a few inches tall, took a step forward menacingly. “Don’t put words into my mouth, Rau,” he warned.

“Look,” Shysa said, breaking in to play peacemaker between them all again, “no one is accusing anyone of putting each other at risk. Rau, we’re not telling you to abandon Aji. Skirata, he’s not implying that you’re breaking the Resol’nare.” He looked at them all. “We are all on the same side here, people. Don’t do the Empire’s job for them.”

Fenn breathed in harshly through his nose, but didn’t say anything.

Calm down. Wait. Be patient. He had done all of that, and it had gained him not even the softest whisper as to what the hell had happened to his nephew. 

When the Empire had rolled into the system, he had kept his head down. When the first uprisings had begun, he had kept his head down. He had had the Protectors to think of, he had told himself. He had Aji to think of, he had told himself. He had kept repeating that to himself, even as things got worse. Even as Saxon started sniffing around for excuses to attack him. Even as the Grand Inquisitor had slaughtered his fellow Mandalorians as an example of the Empire’s might. Even as he was commanded to give up Aji to Sundari’s Academy, now ‘cleansed’ of agitators and anything truly Mandalorian. He had to think of everyone’s safety, he’d told himself.

Now look at where he was. His Protectors disbanded, his nephew missing, forced to skitter about in the shadows like a freighter roach, fearing when the Imperial boot would come down. 

He dug his fingers into the edges of the holoprojector and glared at them. “You may also have children missing, but none of them are directly from your clans. Forgive me,” he bit out, “for taking this a bit more personally than the rest of you.”

Aji. His little nephew, his only living family after the civil war that had ravaged the Mandalorian sector at the end of the Clone Wars. He could still see his boy’s pale, pinched face as he stepped onto the transport that would take him to the Sundari Academy. 

He should have said something, done something. Aji had known, in that strange way that he always did, that something bad was going to happen to him. He’d come to him the night before in tears, begging Fenn to give some excuse so that he didn’t have to go, and Fenn had told him to be brave and think of the House and the clan. 

And then, not even a few months later, he was gone. Disappeared without a trace or an explanation, and almost a year and a half later Fenn still didn’t have the foggiest idea of what had happened to him. 

“Rau,” Shysa said, “we are all sympathetic to your worries about your nephew Aji, but we’re not going to risk our people without good cause. If we slip up we’ll be visited by the Grand Inquisitor just the same as Sundari was. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

Fenn clenched his jaw at the reminder. He knew that — they had all been to Sundari during that terrible time, and hardened warrior or no Fenn knew that he would never forget that charnel house. Or the being behind it.

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” he said, nettled.

Ordo opened his mouth again, but a sharp look from Shysa had him shutting it again before any sound escaped. 

“Okay. I’m glad. Now that that’s settled, though, how about we come up with a plan on how to handle this, huh?” Shysa suggested.

“I would be glad to take part in that,” Fett said calmly, speaking for the first time since the start of the meeting. “Playing the blame game is a waste of time. We need to figure out how to keep from giving Saxon his excuse to purge us.”

“Nicely summarized,” Kryze snarked.

Fenn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It would be best if we could avoid going at all,” he said.

“Best, but unfortunately impossible,” Ordo said grimly. “It would be too easy to twist it around and accuse us of planning something.”

Which we are, Fenn thought, but out loud he agreed with the man. “We would just be handing ourselves over to Saxon and the Empire’s interrogators on a platter. So — that leaves us with going.”

“And allowing him to scrutinize us up close,” Kryze said. The snark had left her voice, though, replaced with a subtle undercurrent of worry. “Any sign of disloyalty and he’ll go to the Empire.”

“So we’ll have to look loyal,” Skirata grumbled. 

“Oh, don’t sound so disappointed, you and the Empire were still buddy-buddy until the last uprising,” Ordo snorted. “The rest of us have a history with the chakaar.” He jerked his chin at Fenn. “Him especially.”

Fenn grimaced. 

Shysa looked at him, worried. “I was meaning to ask — have you still been sending requests to see Academy records?”

He scratched his jaw, not looking at them. “At this point, I thought it would be more suspicious to stop,” he muttered.

Skirata groaned. “Damn it, you’ve been leaving a paper trail and annoying him?”

Fenn glared at him. “What, should I have just gathered up my best men and broken in?” he asked sarcastically. “Because you know, that’s far less attention-grabbing than filling out a form.”

“Not if you do it correctly.”

“Gentlemen.” Fett’s voice was cold. “If you could put aside your argument and focus on the danger at hand…”

“Oh, leave off it Fett,” Kryze said. “This isn’t something that we can have a step-by-step plan for. The others are right, all we can do is go and look like good little Imperial citizens.”

Fett glared at her. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have exit plans,” he said, sounding a little heated for the first time in this meeting. 

Kryze wrinkled her nose and Fenn sighed. Rubbing his temple, he settled down, all too aware that this was going to be a long night. Arguments or no between them, at this point they were all in this together. Saxon and the Empire were too much of a risk for them to all face separately. 

“Alright,” he said, cutting through the argument growing between Kryze and Fett. “Let’s start with Fett’s ideas about escape routes.”

* * *

Sabine was standing in the doorway of the Duchess’ throne room. 

She didn’t know how she could tell that it was that room; all of the times that she had been in it before, the glass panels that made up the walls had been uncovered and spotless, letting the sunlight stream in without any barriers. The room that she was now standing in the doorway to was covered in red Imperial banners that hung from the ceiling and down the walls, covering even the floor in pools of the blood-red cloth and hiding any trace of the traditional Mandalorian architecture underneath. At the end of the room opposite of her stood the throne on a dais, yes, but it too was covered in swaths of the red cloth, with one particularly large banner hanging behind it so that the black Imperial Crest hovered over the chair like a spider. 

The overall effect was that of stepping into the heart of some enormous beast. In fact, as Sabine did just that and stepped inside, she thought that she could hear the low, steady thud of a drumbeat coming in from the outside.

Red, red, red. Everywhere she turned as she walked through the room, all she could see was the Empire’s red. The banners that had seemed to simply be hanging from the ceiling like dead men now seemed to flutter as she passed by them, twisting in the air. Her boots that usually made a sharp clack against any hard surface were muffled by the banner’s trailing cloth on the floor, tangling around her toes and threatening to make her stumble. 

The drumbeat was louder, and it wasn’t a drumbeat. It was many feet, all marching in time with one another. 

Sabine caught herself as she stumbled at that realization and straightened. As she did so, though, the room seemed to spin around her, the banners waving gently, and she realized that she couldn’t see the throne anymore. She couldn’t see anything but the red. 

Somehow it was this, and not finding herself on Mandalore with no explanation, that set her heart jumping up into her throat. Whipping her head around, she took a few steps and tried to brush the cloth away to peer past it.

It left wet red smears on her hands. Ones that smelled like metal.

Sabine tore her hands away from the cloth like they had been burned. Her heart was now trying to crawl out of her mouth as turned around, looking for another exit, but there just didn’t seem to be one, just fluttering banners that seemed to move jerkily now like dying bodies, all piled up on top of one another in a grave, their hands fluttering as they looked up at her, begging for her to make it stop —

And then she saw it. Something that was not red, half-hidden in the pools of crimson at the bottom of a particularly large banner. 

Sabine rushed towards it, never having felt so relieved before. It was small, something so small that she could have missed it easily if it wasn’t a purple so intense that it hurt her eyes to look at it. A _saviin_ flower, still a bud but instantly recognizable to her after a childhood filled with poetry and art comparing her people to its stubborn drive to grow everywhere its seeds fell. The banners tried to trip her up again as she ran, wrapping around her feet and ankles and legs and leaving behind great smears of blood, but they didn’t even slow her down until she chose to fall to her knees in front of the bud, reaching to touch its pretty purple petals with trembling, blood-slick fingers. 

Before her soiled hands could brush against the delicate petals, however, another spot of purple caught her eye.

Another _saviin_ flower. No, two. They were still buds as well, and Sabine supposed it made sense. The flowers never grew alone, always in groups, and as she looked at them she saw another group, just a little further away, and another group, and another group…

She barely noticed the cloths that had been wrapped around her lower half falling away as she stood back up. More flowers, more little signs of Mandalore, sprouting up from underneath the Empire trying to smother them. She followed them, seeing more and more, until it was a carpet of purple beneath her, shaped like a trail through the snow back home, leading through the maze of banners until she was standing in front of the throne that she’d lost track of, still smothered in red cloth but now surrounded by purple, by _saviin_ flower buds.

Buds that now began to tremble as Sabine came to a stop, staring up at the tainted throne and the Imperial Crest crouched above it. The trembling grew more violent the longer she stood there, staring at the symbol of her people and the Empire’s control over them, until she finally tore her gaze away to try and figure out why they were moving when she couldn’t feel any breeze against her cheeks —

The buds were opening. And inside of them weren’t the sunny yellow pistils and stamen. No, inside of these _saviin_ she saw — orange?

Yes, orange. Orange sparks, that floated up and away from the flowers like lightning bugs at twilight, up and away and towards the blood-soaked banners. Sabine reached out a hand towards them, her mouth falling open silently as she — tried to warn them? Of the sodden banners that would no doubt put out their lights?

But that didn’t happen. As the lights rose and drifted through the banners, they acted like the little bits of fire that Sabine had thought of them of. The banners, so tall and strong and wet with her people’s blood, blackened as the sparks brushed by them, yellow flames beginning to lick at their red red fabric. 

The _saviin_ flowers continued to open as she turned, and now she saw that the entire floor was covered with them, the buds opening up in a wave as the flames grew bigger. They weren’t just yellow anymore, either; as the banners burned, the flames changed colours. Along with the yellow she could now see blues and greens and purples, every colour but the awful red that had surrounded her. The fire burned until she was in the middle of an inferno, the flames swirling around her, and she was turning again, following the colours with her eyes —

And then they were gone. The flames were all gone in the time it took to blink, leaving her alone in the throne room with the sunlight shining through the glass walls. There wasn’t even the smell of smoke.

There was just her, and the throne, tall and white in front of her. Sabine took a step towards it. There was something on the throne’s seat; a bunch of fresh-picked _saviin_ , like what Sabine had used to pick for her father’s studio. Hesitantly, Sabine took another step forward, reaching towards the flowers.

And froze. There was someone behind her.

“Sabine Wren,” said a male voice. “We need to talk.”

* * *

Sabine’s eyes snapped open, going from deeply asleep to wide awake in the space of a second as she gasped for air. 

She wasn’t in the Duchess’ throne room on Mandalore. She was nowhere near Mandalore at all. She was in her room on the Ghost, staring up at the mural of her family on the ceiling that she had just finished adding Ezra to. Glancing over to the side, she could see from the time on the chronometer that it was still night cycle on base. She’d only gone to bed three hours ago.

“What the kriff?” she muttered to herself in the darkness of her room, reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes. She could tell that she wouldn’t be getting anymore sleep tonight; her heart was still thudding in her chest, and she could feel the tingle of blood rushing through her veins. That dream, with the banners and the saviin flowers — what was up with that?

Raising herself up onto her elbows, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and jumped down, landing silently. The ship was oddly quiet, even after nearly six months grounded; Sabine was used to the low growl of the Ghost’s engines, or the burbling of Chopper running diagnostics, or one of the other hundred noises that filled the ship at all times when they were in space. But with Ezra’s recovery and therapy to get used to his new leg, and the arguments going on between the Jedi and the Resistance about what to do with the other kids rescued from Dromund Kaas, all hands were needed here on Yavin to keep things running, including the Specters.

Personally, Sabine didn’t really care about the politics surrounding the Dromund Kaas raid. She preferred to maintain a studied indifference towards the whole thing when she could, rather than dealing with the sting of old wounds opening back up. Surrounded by all of the arguments, though, it was hard to maintain that, forcing her to spend more time on the Ghost than she wanted to.

Straightening up, she dusted off her hands. The empty visors of the helmets she’d been attempting to paint before bed gleamed dully in the low light of the chronometer, the abstract swooshes and loops that she had unenthusiastically added washed out to shades of grey. She tightened her lips at the sight of them.

Not for the first time, she wished that she had managed to grab her helmet back during the raid. She was only wearing her sleep clothes right now, a too-big shirt with short sleeves and long, soft tights, but her hands itched to feel its familiar and comforting weight. The helmets sitting on the table under her bunk just felt wrong to her, either too light or too heavy or the foam inside was too rough or it didn’t have the room for her to add her extra features that she was used to —

She turned away from them abruptly as her stomach flopped. If wishes were fishes, she thought, remembering the odd little saying that her father was fond of. Yes, she lied to herself, it would be better to still have the complete set of armour but any of the helmets she’d collected would work; she was just clinging to the one she had had because her family had helped her decorate it.

Palming the button to her door, she slipped out into the hallway. The lights were on low, barely lighting up the corridor enough to see where she was going, but she was familiar enough with the ship that she didn’t need to put a hand on the wall to keep from tripping. She headed towards the galley, a vague idea of maybe making some tea to calm down drifting through her head.

As she got closer to the galley, though, she slowed down, cocking her head to one side. Now that she was out from the sleeping quarters section of the ship, she could faintly hear the sounds of the Yavinese insect nightlife, buzzing and chirping quietly to themselves, but underneath that, she thought she heard people…talking?

Were Hera and Kanan still up? She had thought that she’d seen them heading into Hera’s room together tonight, and had assumed that it was one of those nights; now that she thought about it though, Hera had been looking over a datapad for a few days now with that little wrinkle between her eyebrows that she got when she was looking at a problem. Maybe it was another adult activity that the two of them had been planning to do, and they had moved back into the galley so not as to disturb those of the crew that were sleeping?

As the door hissed open though, Sabine saw that that hypothesis was wrong. Rather, the last person that she had expected was the one up. “Ezra?”

Sitting by the holoprojector that was playing that Old Republic serial that he’d watched a dozen times before with Kanan, his prosthetic leg propped up on the bench beside him, was the youngest member of the crew. He wasn’t watching the serial though; instead, his face was screwed up in concentration as he dug his fingers into the meat around his leg’s reception port in a rough massage. When she spoke, though, he jumped and pulled away his hands with a guilty look on his face. “Sabine?” His eyes darted over to the holo and the look of guilt on his face deepened. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

The light from the holo cast strange patterns of light across his face as she crossed the room, forgetting her plan for tea. “No, just bad dreams. Is your leg hurting again?”

Ezra bit his lower lip in a nervous tic. “I —” he began, automatically denying. Then he visibly forced himself to stop, letting out a sigh. “Yeah,” he muttered. “It — it woke me up about an hour ago. I was waiting for it to get better before trying to sleep again.”

Sabine frowned and walked around the projector to get a good look at the stump of what was left of Ezra’s leg, pausing the holo as she came. In the flickering light of the holo it wasn’t easy to see, but every Mandalorian child received lessons in battlefield medicine almost a soon as they were old enough to get into scrapes. To her eyes, at least, the stump of his left leg that ended just above where his knee had used to be looked fine. With the leg of the loose sleep pants he had started favouring during his recovery rolled up, she could see the metal of his new leg’s connection port glinting in the low light against his dark skin. As she watched his hands seemed to drift back down without his permission to rub at it, kneading the muscle like it was cramping and bumping against the port. Recognizing the motion, her mouth twisted in sympathy. “Phantom pains, huh?”

Ezra nodded reluctantly. “I took the pills Doctor Fevo gave me but it’s been an hour and it still doesn’t feel like they’re working.”

“You took the right dosage, right?” she asked, straightening. “Not more?”

Ezra wrinkled his nose. “I know how to handle painkillers,” he said testily. “No more than you’re told at one time, no more times than you’re told. I saw enough addicts growing up to know not to play around with drugs.”

Sabine held up her hands. “Alright, sorry,” she said, taking a step back and turning. “I just know that these things can creep up on you. I’m making tea, do you want any?”

Behind her, Ezra sighed. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked that question; Ezra wasn’t stupid, after all. Still, like she had just said, these sorts of addictions tended to sneak up on people; she’d had that repeated over and over in her lessons, both at home and at the Academy, and had been taught to spot the signs of a burgeoning addiction. 

Then again, so had Ezra, and in far less forgiving circumstances than her. 

“Yeah, sure, I’ll have some,” he said quietly, sitting back in his seat. He sounded exhausted, like that little flash of temper had completely drained him of energy. “Add some of my powder?”

“Sure.” Sabine filled up the kettle and set it to boiling before pulling the vitamin powder and two mugs out of the cupboards. “Do you want a bar as well?” She glanced back over at him.

He grimaced at the idea and placed a hand over his stomach. “No thanks, I don’t think my stomach would like that right now,” he said. 

Sabine nodded in acknowledgment and closed the door of the cupboard. The kettle was rumbling quietly to itself so she turned her attention to finding the measuring cups in the mess of drawers.

By the time she did find them the kettle had automatically clicked off, its job done, and Ezra had un-paused the serial. It was playing quietly enough that Sabine had to strain her hearing to hear the dialogue as the — Captain? — talked to his crew. Sabine recognized the droid and pilot, but there were three other characters that she hadn’t seen before, what looked like two monks and some sort of femme fatale in a dress with slits that went up almost all the way to her armpits. As she measured out the powder and tea and poured the hot water into the cups, she learned the new character’s names. The two monks were Chaze and Birrut, and the woman was Jyn, and they were talking about some sort of super-weapon?

Ezra paused the holo again as she carried the mugs over to the projector and handed his to him. “Thanks,” he said, still sounding tired.

“No problem,” Sabine replied, sitting down beside him. “You sound a little more tired now, are the pills finally kicking in?”

Ezra blew on his drink before answering. “No,” he said, taking a sip and un-pausing the holo. “Just — other things, you know?”

Sabine hummed. She’d been sitting in with the two of them during some of their lessons; after what had happened to her at the hands of the Seventh Sister during their raid on Dromund Kaas, Kanan had offered to teach her how to protect her mind from a Force User, and she had gladly accepted it. Drinking down his instructions like they were water on a desert planet, she knew that she had taken to them with ease. Ezra, meanwhile…

The thing was, Ezra was trying. Everyone on the ship knew that he was trying so hard to understand, to do things the Jedi way rather than how the Inquisitors had taught him.  
The thing was, Ezra was — well, not failing, but not quite succeeding either. 

Sabine hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on Kanan and Hera. Outside of her shielding lessons, she tried to give Ezra and Kanan space to work out their bond and the whole student-master thing, the same as everyone else. But she hadn’t been able to avoid hearing their voices echoing through the air vents of the ship as she was cleaning them, and hearing about how Ezra was struggling with using the Force without tapping into his negative emotions. She was sympathetic, and honestly from how they had been talking so were Kanan and Hera, but it was still kind of worrying to hear that the kid couldn’t connect to so much as a tooka without making it yowl in pain. Kanan had said that connecting to someone without a bond was different than with one, but she had been able to hear the worry in his voice that day. She’d been able to see it in his face the next time they were working together as well. 

Ezra was looking down at his mug, rubbing a thumb along its rim and chewing on his lower lip. “I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to do it the right way, the way Kanan describes it, but — it just doesn’t seem to work. Even when I’m trying to be really, really careful…” He trailed off into silence and took another drink from his mug.

Sabine winced and rubbed the rim of her mug as well. “I know, and so does Kanan,” she tried to reassure him. “You’ll get it eventually.”

Ezra just sank lower in his seat, continuing to sip moodily at his drink. “I just want to get rid of the Dark Side stuff,” he muttered. “I want to do things right and not hurt people, but the stuff he says about letting the Force just flow through me — how am I supposed to make it do something specific just by letting it flow through me?”

She didn’t know what to say to that. The holo was still playing, but Sabine had completely lost the thread of the plot at this point. “You’ll get it eventually,” she promised, sounding more confident than she felt. “I know that Kanan’s working on how to explain things better — I even saw him talking with Master Unduli the other day, and you know that she earned that title.”

Ezra bit his lower lip again, his eyes darting up to look at her before hastily looking away again. “I’m supposed to be strong in the Force, though,” he pointed out. “That’s why the Inquisitors picked me up.”

“Strength doesn’t translate to technique, Ezra,” Sabine said. She shifted in her seat so that she was facing more towards him. “Don’t beat yourself up about this; it’s only been like six months since you started learning how to use the Force right, and you’ve been recovering from your leg too on top of that. No one is good when they’re just starting out learning something, it takes time.”

That seemed to help a little at least. Ezra was rubbing the lip of his mug again, but he managed to summon a small smile at her words. “Sorry,” he said, “I know that no one’s expecting me to get all of this right away, it’s just — I can’t even get the connecting right, and that’s supposed to be my main talent. If I can’t even get that right…” He trailed off and took another sip from his mug.

Sabine bumped shoulders with him gently. Neither of them were paying any attention to the holo now. “You are good at it. You’re connecting, aren’t you? You just have some bad habits.”

Ezra sputtered, a little tea dribbling down his chin. “I wouldn’t call it just some bad habits,” he said, coughing and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. But he was smiling a little at the silliness of her statement.

She grinned back at him and bumped shoulders with him again. “You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Ezra said. “I guess. I just — I guess I’m just also worried because neither of us really chose each other, and what if Kanan —”

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there,” Sabine interrupted. She lay her hand on his right, whole leg and squeezed. “Don’t start doubting your bond with Kanan again. You’ve talked to Doctor Nema, and you know that regardless of how it got started there’s nothing wrong with the bond itself. That’s just your insecurities talking.”

Ezra squirmed in his seat and sat up. “I know you’re right, it’s just…” He sighed. “I want to make Kanan proud.”

“He is proud of you,” Sabine replied. “Go talk to him and you’ll see.” She took a sip of her tea and sighed. “Honestly, he’s probably just as worried and insecure as you are with the bond. I heard him talking with Hera about it.”

Ezra looked down at his drink. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Sabine said. “He was worried that you were having trouble because he was a bad teacher. He didn’t think it was your fault at all.”

“But he’s not!” Ezra said, alarmed. “He’s great!”

Sabine shushed him. “Then tell him that,” she said. “Honestly, half of your guys’ trouble is that you don’t talk.”

* * *

“Just talk to him, love. He wants to make you proud, I can see it. You won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong if you don’t.”

Kanan grimaced and hid his face in the crook of Hera’s neck. The two of them were sitting in her bunk in her room, dressed in their sleep clothes. She was holding a datapad, scrolling through it and leaning back against him as he talked, trying to figure out how to re-teach Ezra how to connect with other beings through the Light Side. “I’m trying to do it the proper Jedi way with the bond, but —”

He felt Hera turn her head, her lips dragging across his temple. “Stop worrying about doing things the Jedi way,” she said, sounding gently exasperated. “He wasn’t raised as one like you were. You don’t have to try and give him the full experience when another way of teaching would probably fit him better.”

Kanan’s arms were already wrapped around her middle, but he squeezed her a little. “He deserves the best,” he said sadly, pulling his head up and resting his cheek on top of her bare head. 

“The traditional Jedi way may not be the best,” she repeated. She sighed and, putting the datapad to one side, patted his knee. “You’re getting this all tangled up in your head. Yes, you have a master-padawan bond, but that’s just a name. It doesn’t mean that you have to do everything the Jedi way.”

Kanan pressed his lips together and flexed his fingers. It was hard, putting what he was feeling into words. Part of him knew that she was right; Ezra wasn’t raised in the Temple. He hadn’t grown up with stories of Revan and Nomi Sunrider, learned how to move things through the Force so that he could sneak an extra treat at dinner. He hadn’t been taught katas and meditation exercises practically as soon as he could walk. There were so many little things that Kanan had learned growing up in the Temple, little hiccups that he tripped over as he tried to teach Ezra and referred to things that he had never heard of, or didn’t have the foundation to understand…

He groaned. “I just — there are some parts that the Inquisitorius taught him that are almost correct, and others that are flat out wrong, and I swear, the stuff that’s almost right is harder to correct than what’s entirely wrong. He’s having to pretty much relearn everything from scratch, things that I didn’t even realize I knew before I had to stop and explain to him…” He leaned back against the wall and sighed. “It’s overwhelming.”

She squeezed his leg again. “Just stop putting so much pressure on yourself and be ready to answer a lot questions. His struggles don’t reflect on you as a teacher. If anything, his willingness to keep trying is a testament of how well you’re doing — most street kids I’ve known wouldn’t have the patience to do that. Take things slowly and one at a time, and before you two know it he’ll have the stuff down cold.”

Kanan hummed a little, then kissed the top of her head. “I’ll try,” he said. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” she said, picking her datapad back up. 

For a little while they just sat there, content with each other’s presences. Kanan let his head rest against the wall again, trying to go through what he still needed to teach Ezra. Maybe they should start over again with the basics of feeling the Force?

Hera was tapping a fingernail along the edge of her pad. She’d been looking at it for several days now, her eyebrows furrowed. 

“Y’know,” Kanan said, “now that you’ve helped me with my issue, do you maybe want to share what’s on that datapad that has you so worried?”

In his arms, Hera stiffened for a moment before relaxing. “I’ve been that obvious, then?” she asked wryly.

“Well, you do like to read, but the way you’ve been staring at the pad has just been excessive,” Kanan said with a shrug. 

Hera sighed and chuckled a little to herself. “It’s a possible mission from Fulcrum. I’ve been trying to figure out if I should even bring it up to the rest of the crew.”

Kanan frowned. “A mission? They do know that we’ve got Ezra with us, right?”

“They do,” Hera said. “Honestly, it’s a milk run. Our cover would be going in with supplies for a festival celebrating the end of a civil war. The sort of thing where all the Imps are too drunk to really pay attention, and too personal to the planet to be worth attacking by anti-Imperial forces.”

Humming again to himself, Kanan rested his chin on her shoulder. “Then why the hesitation?”

Hera tensed underneath him again. “Because of which planet it’s taking place on.”

“Oh?”

“Mandalore,” Hera said, biting her lower lip.

Kanan stiffened, sitting up straight. “What? Mandalore, a milk run?” he said incredulously.

Hera grimaced. “That’s why I was debating it,” she said, clearly unhappy. 

“No wonder,” Kanan said, reaching up to rub at his forehead.

Mandalore. That hot mess of a planet, with its five uprisings in sixteen years, and the horror that had put down the fifth — how could anyone label a mission there as a milk run? Let alone suggest it to their crew?

“They do know that we have a Mandalorian on our crew, right? One that was there for the Cleansing?”

“Apparently, that was actually one of the reasons why they decided to ask us.”

Kanan dropped his hand down from his forehead and stared at Hera incredulously. 

She shrugged. She still didn’t look happy. “I had the same expression, I assure you. But apparently with how insular the Mandalorians have been getting, they thought it would be best to have a native as part of the mission.”

Kanan groaned. “Are you kidding me?”

Hera sighed. “The problem is, aside from the fact that we don’t know how Sabine would react to it, the mission really is an easy one. It’s just picking up prosthetics and other medical supplies.”

“Those can be picked up anywhere, why Mandalore?”

“Because the prosthetics are specialized for children,” Hera replied. “Ezra may have gotten his leg, but most of the other kids missing body parts are still going without. Because they’re more complicated to account for still-growing bodies they’re tracked more closely. Getting them even this close was a miracle, and if we don’t grab them it could be another six months before we manage to find more.”

Kanan let his head fall back. “Damn it.” Damn it damn it damn it. He couldn’t even argue with that, he’d seen the other kids when he went with Ezra for his physical therapy. They needed those limbs; it was unfair to make them wait more when they were trying to do things with only one eye or hand. 

“Honestly, I’ve been chewing on this for days,” Hera admitted. “I just don’t know how to bring it up to Sabine.”

“Does Fulcrum really not have any other Mandalorians that they could contact for this?” Kanan tried. “Are we really the only ones that can do this?”

“We’re the only ones that can get there in less than a month,” Hera said. “First thing I checked.”

Kanan sighed again and squeezed her in a hug. “Damn it,” he repeated. “Okay. Okay, how to approach Sabine about it.”

“I was thinking of just presenting it normally,” Hera suggested. “Like any other mission, see how she reacts.”

“If we do that though, she might feel like she has to go through with it,” Kanan pointed out. “Especially if Ezra’s there; he’s going to want to be there yesterday if it would help the other kids.”

Hera turned her head and grimaced. “You’re right. Damn it.” She sighed. “I just don’t want her to feel like we’re babying her.”

“It’s not babying,” Kanan said gently. “It’s making sure that our crew is capable of doing the mission. Look, if you want, I’ll explain the mission to her in private, and see if she’s up to it. If she isn’t, we’ll explain it Fulcrum and move on without telling the rest of the crew. If she is, we’ll proceed as usual. Give her a chance to back out without feeling pressured.”

Hera hummed and leaned back against him, her brow wrinkling again in though. After a moment, she placed a hand over his, squeezing it. “That could work,” she said. “You sure you’re okay to do it?”

“Of course,” Kanan said. Then he yawned. “In the morning,” he corrected.

Hera just chuckled. “Sorry, I have been keeping you up haven’t I?”

“No, no,” Kanan said, yawning again halfway through the second ‘no’. “I’m the one that spent most of the time complaining.” He shifted in the bed.

Hera chuckled again and put the datapad to the side, this time on top of the bedside shelf. “How about we just agree we both kept each other up?”

“That sounds good,” Kanan agreed. He shifted, letting her crawl out of his lap and lie down next to him. It was cramped in the bunk, but they’d done it before and frankly he didn’t feel like prying himself out of this comfortable bed to go to his cold one across the hall. 

Hera took his silent invitation happily, curling up with her head underneath his chin and her hands pressed against his chest. She often got cold at night, regardless of what planet they were on, and said that he was the best heater she’d ever had on the ship. “Good night, love,” she murmured against his collarbone.

“Good night, Hera,” he murmured against her scalp. “I love you.”


	2. Waking Up

Kanan woke up slowly the next morning, his arms full of Hera’s warmth. Shifting slightly in the cramped bunk, he opened his eyes just enough to see the light green stretch of skin that was the top of her head and smiled, pressing a kiss to it. In his arms, Hera stirred, mumbling something underneath her breath. “L’eve m’lone, sle’ping…”

For a moment, he considered listening to her request and just going back to sleep. With all the stress of the last few months, they’d barely had time for moments like this: just the two of them and the quiet of morning. He’d missed them, and now that he had one he was loathe to bring it to an end.

Reality, however, refused to be denied. As he lay there considering his options, he heard a thump, like someone jumping down from a height, and a burst of giggling.

Regretfully, he slipped his arms out from underneath his lover and propped himself up, sighing. “Sorry, Hera, but no can do. Sounds like we have company outside.”  
Hera furrowed her eyebrows, her eyes determinedly screwed shut. Kanan waited patiently. 

Finally, after a long several seconds, she sucked in a large breath and sighed, opening her eyes. “Alright, alright,” she grumbled, “I’m up.”

Kanan chuckled. Shifting, he carefully hauled himself up and over her, letting out a small squeak as his bare foot touched the cold metal floor. “Watch out, floor’s cold,” he warned, trying to save face in the face of Hera’s smirk. 

“I will,” she said pleasantly. “In the meantime, if you want to get dressed…”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, straightening and turning towards the door. “See you in the galley.”

Outside of the room, the giggling was louder. Pausing to listen for a few moments, Kanan sighed and shook his head with a fond smile. These last six months had been busy for everyone, but they had been especially busy for him. After so many years of shutting himself away from the Force, it was jarring to re-acquaint himself with the Jedi arts. He stumbled over katas he had mastered in the creche, and lessons that he had learned decades ago were slow to rise from his memories. When he wasn’t helping Ezra with his recovery, he was trying to get himself back into true Jedi shape, leaving no time to really get to know the other kids that had been rescued.

Oh, he knew some of them — Fleti, the little Togruta girl that Ezra treated like a baby sister was impossible to not know with how she visited him daily — but most of the time, when Ezra was chatting away about who he had seen that day, Kanan could only smile and nod at the barrage of names thrown his way. Stepping into his room and grabbing his caddy of grooming supplies, Kanan wondered: who it was going to be today that had snuck onto the Ghost to visit Ezra?

Once he was shaved and washed and dressed for the day, he stepped back out of the room and headed down the corridor towards where the giggling was coming from. As he did, Kanan mulled over the fact that just a few months ago the kids had almost seemed scared to show emotion; now, you could barely step outside of your ship without hearing at least one small giggle from a kid nearby. It warmed his heart, knowing that they were recovering so well.

And if Sabine agreed, they’d recover even better. Dhara, who he’d actually met during the original rescue with a reception port clamped onto the stump of her arm, was still going around without anything to attach to the port.

If Sabine agreed, he thought, his steps slowing. She was a good kid, but Mandalore had been a shitshow of a mission…

One thing at a time, he told himself. One thing at a time. Stepping into the kitchen, he smiled as he saw Hera already standing there, starting up the caf machine. 

“Finally found your pants, then?” she teased as she saw them, her eyes crinkling. “You took a while getting ready.”

He grinned at her, scooting just past her towards the fridge and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “We still have some leftover bacon, right?” he asked. “I was thinking that we’d have omelettes?”

“Sounds delicious. Usual deal?”

The deal that she was talking about was that Kanan did all the cooking, with her only being allowed to touch the caf machine. It was a deal that they’d worked out the first few months that they’d worked together. Well, more like the first time Kanan tasted her attempts at cooking. He grinned at her. “Sounds good to me,” he said, pulling out the ingredients and setting them on the counter. “I’m just going to swing by the party outside and see if Ezra’s eaten yet.”

Hera returned his kiss with one of her own. “You sure? I can do that if you want to get started on breakfast.”

Kanan shrugged. “It’s no trouble for me. Besides, you were the one telling me to talk to Ezra. No time like the present.”

Hera hummed and tilted her head to one side. The click of the caf machine going off seemed to make up her mind though. Turning to it, she pulled a mug from the cupboards above. “Glad to see you taking my advice, then,” she said. “I’ll have your caf ready when you come back.”

“Thanks,” Kanan said, heading towards the cargo bay and the source of the giggling.

Once he reached it, he smiled. He’d thought he’d heard that particular high, bell-like giggle. 

Stepping out onto the little balcony that overlooked the cargo bay, he leaned against the railing quietly, not yet willing to interrupt the little scene taking place in front of him.

Fleti Ba, short and skinny and wearing a little orange dress that somehow didn’t clash with her golden skin, was tugging at Ezra’s arm as she danced in place, babbling on about some new recipe that the clone cook Scratch had taught her. Ezra was grinning down at her as she told her story, patiently letting her pull his arm this way and that without complaint. 

The little Togruta had been one of the first children to blossom after they had all been rescued from the Academy. For the first few days in the med-bay she had been as quiet as the other children, seemingly afraid that any movement could result in some sort of violence being inflicted on her. She had shrank into the background, looking more like a doll than a living, breathing person. Kanan had been in and out, and he had only seen her come alive when Ezra was brought out of his room for physical therapy. When she saw his padawan, she would come alive for a few minutes, happily talking with him, but as soon as Ezra left she had shrunk back into her shell, watching the world pass by.

Then Stance and Scratch had come in, laden down with treats that they had apparently spent days putting together. Handing them out to the children, Scratch had noticed her sitting silently on her bed, trying not to catch anyone’s attention but staring at the treats longingly. 

That had been all the permission the clone had needed, apparently. Waiting in the doorway as Ezra’s leg was checked to see if it had healed enough to have a reception port attached, Kanan had watched warily as the clone approached the little girl like she was a timid wild animal. He had been forcing himself to be more comfortable with Grey, but at the time had still been struggling to be comfortable around other clones. 

But Scratch hadn’t done her any harm. Rounding his shoulders like he was trying to make himself look smaller, Kanan had watched him as he spoke to Fleti, holding out the sweets that he had made. At first she had looked at him suspiciously, clearly questioning why he was talking to her specifically, but no child, especially one that had gone through what she had gone through, could resist the lure of sweets for long. 

It hadn’t taken long before she was sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, her bare legs swinging as she stuffed her face and listened to him talk. In the following days, Scratch had visited her and the other kids again and again, always with treats and stories, and Fleti had blossomed under his attention. After he had left, it took longer and longer for her to retreat into the wariness that had marked her during her first days after the rescue, until finally one day she didn’t retreat at all. Instead, she chattered away, greeting the various soldiers and doctors that came in and out and wheedling them into little games.

She was doing the same now with Ezra. “— says he found some ronto bacon and he’s going to dip it in chocolate, Ezra! Chocolate!”

“What?” Ezra asked, looking a mixture of confused and amused. “I’ve had hot chocolate and all but that stuff doesn’t look like it’s meant to be some sort of dip.”

“Hot chocolate isn’t the same as the chocolate she’s talking about, Ezra,” said a familiar voice. “Stuff she’s talking about is sold in blocks and melted down. I’ve had it before; you’d probably enjoy it.”

Kanan smiled again as he saw who was now walking into the ship as well and decided to make everyone aware of his presence. “Janus. Grey,” he called out, leaning over the railing of the balcony that overlooked the small bay. “Didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

Grey looked up and smiled at his greeting, the lines of his face crinkling happily. Since Kanan had started trying to truly reconnect with his old clone commander, the man hadn’t stopped smiling, rewriting his crows feet into laughter lines. “Wasn’t really planned, Kanan,” he said. “Just got back from a smuggling run and wanted to say hi to the kid.” He ruffled Ezra’s hair, getting the teen to duck away with a grin. 

“Still good to see you,” Kanan said. “Me and Hera are just making breakfast, do you want any?” 

“We’re good,” Janus said. “Maybe later. Right now we should actually be finishing up unloading before one of the supply officers crawls up our —” he paused to look guiltily at Fleti “— butts.”

Kanan nodded. He understood how impatient those guys could be. “Later then.” He looked down at Ezra, who Fleti was still hanging off of, and addressed him. “Ezra, you eaten yet?”

Ezra nodded. “Warmed up some leftovers from last night.”

“And your vitamin powder?”

“In my tea,” Ezra said, sounding a little exasperated.

Kanan didn’t take it personally. Yeah, it was habit by now for his padawan, but it still never hurt to ask. “Alright. Lessons in the afternoon, don’t be late.”

A flicker of _something_ crossed Ezra’s face, a little too fast for Kanan to catch, but he nodded. “Sure, I’ll be there.”

His unenthusiastic tone almost made Kanan frown, but he smothered the expression, remembering his talk with Hera. Ezra wanted to make him proud, but it had to be hard, learning how to be a Jedi with Kanan as his teacher. It was no surprise with all the trouble they were having that he wouldn’t be super-enthusiastic. 

“Say hi to Stance for me, then.” He turned to go to back to the galley but then paused. He hadn’t seen or heard Sabine anywhere; Zeb was off putting some new recruits through their paces, but he wasn’t aware of her having any special duties with the Resistance or Fulcrum lately…

He turned back. “Actually, before you go — have you seen Sabine?”

Ezra blinked up at him for a moment before answering. “Um, I think she said she was going to go through the spare helmets again? She said that the ones she has still aren’t fitting right.”

Kanan hummed. “I see. If you see her, can you tell her that I’m looking for her? I have something that I want to talk to her about.”

Ezra shrugged. “Sure, no problem.”

Glancing at the other kids, they nodded and mumbled out various agreements. Satisfied, Kanan went back in, his stomach giving a soft grumble as he caught a whiff of freshly-made caf.

An hour later, with a belly full of omelette and caf and Sabine still nowhere in sight, Kanan set out from the Ghost to find her. His first stop was where Ezra had mentioned her going — the Resistance armory.

* * *

Sabine ran her fingers along the rows and rows of helmets, pondering her choices and ignoring the annoyed glances that the supply officer was shooting her as he tried to scrub her paintjobs off of the helmets she’d returned. Early on after the raid where she’d lost her original helmet, she’d cut a deal with the supply officers on-base; so long as she returned the ones she ended up not using, they would allow her to go through their stock as many times as she needed. Some of them, like the one on duty today, definitely regretted that deal, but so long as she kept up her end of the bargain and at least tried to scrub the worst of her paint off of the helmets she took and returned they wouldn’t say anything.

The last ones she’d used had been just basic pilots helmets; the ones that she’d managed to find previously that covered the face had been frustrating, too loose for her tastes and making her feel like the damned things were bouncing back and forth like bells on her head whenever she moved faster than a light jog. So she’d figured with the pilots’ helmets she’d maybe at least avoid that sensation. She had succeeded with that, but the trade-off had been the lower half of her face constantly feeling cold and exposed. 

Sighing, she stopped in the middle of the rows of equipment and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “Hey, do you have anything new in the back?” she called up to the front. 

“This ain’t a store, kid,” the man called back gruffly, suddenly studiously not looking up from his scrubbing.

She twisted her mouth in irritation, walking back up to him. “I’m not an idiot,” she said tersely. “I just know that sometimes you guys have stuff in the back that just need a few repairs. Tatu lets me back there —”

“Well, too bad for you, because I’m not Tatu,” the man drawled. He lifted the helmet like he was examining it in the light.

Sabine narrowed her eyes at him.

After a moment of concentrated glaring from her, he dropped the pretense and scowled right back at her. “Look,” he said bluntly, “you’ve been in and out of here for six months straight and still haven’t found a helmet that you don’t return a week later with some bantha-fodder excuse. At this point, I’m thinking that maybe you should start admitting that the problem is you and not our stuff, eh?”

Sabine bristled. “You’re saying I’m too picky.”

The man shrugged and gestured expansively with the hand holding the helmet. “No one else has been returning helmets like bottles to a recycling plant,” he pointed out.

Grinding her teeth, Sabine opened her mouth and was about to launch into a lecture on the finer points of armour and the importance of it fitting well when the door to the room hissed open.

“Sabine.”

Her mouth shut with a sharp click as she turned to look at who was coming in. “Kanan?” He wasn’t big on armour, preferring the armoured shoulder piece he had currently strapped across his chest and arm. What was he doing here?

Kanan just flashed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes at her. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. He was holding a datapad and gestured vaguely towards her with it. “Got something to talk to you about if you have a second.”

Something to talk about? She looked back at the supply officer for some reason, but he had already gone back to scrubbing at the helmet. Her mouth twisted in irritation again, and she shook her head. “Sure, I have time right now.”

“Good. Come with me?”

They exited the room together, Kanan just a step ahead of her. As the door hissed shut behind her, she paused, resting a hand on her hip. “Alright then, what did you want to talk about?”

Kanan had kept walking as she stopped. When she spoke, however, he paused just long enough to turn around and speak to her. “Not out here. Somewhere more private.”

Her gut flip-flopped. “Kanan?”

He flashed her another smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “In private,” he said, jerking his head towards a door further down the corridor. 

Her gut now doing acrobatic in her abdomen, Sabine followed him into the room he gestured to. It was tiny, clearly mostly used for storage of some of the larger bits and pieces that fell under the purview of the supply officers, but she couldn’t bring herself to examine it more closely. Right now, all of her attention was trained instead on the tension coiled in Kanan’s shoulders as he faced away from her, letting out a sigh.

“Alright,” he said, turning around. “You might want to take a seat for this.”

Looking around quickly, she found a half-disassembled speederbike. Crossing her arms over her chest to guard against the chill she found settling into her bones, she sat down on it and watched as Kanan made himself comfortable on a crate opposite of her. “Is something wrong?” she blurted out as he fiddled with the datapad again. “Has something happened?”

Kanan grimaced. “Depends on your point of view,” he said, then winced. He scrubbed at his face roughly. “Ah, hell, I’m making this sound kind of ominous, aren’t I?”

“Just a little,” Sabine agreed, squaring her shoulders. 

Kanan smiled — a real one this time — and then sighed again. “We were offered a mission from Fulcrum. A milk run.”

Sabine blinked in confusion but didn’t relax. “You wouldn’t be doing all of this if that was it,” she pointed out. “Just spit it out.”

Kanan’s expression was now a mix of amusement and pride. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It’s not.” He held out the datapad towards her. “The mission takes place on Mandalore. In Sundari, to be precise.”

Sabine — well, she hadn’t been prepared for any answer, precisely, but this answer in particular stole the breath from her chest for a long, painful moment. “Sundari. On Mandalore.” She didn’t take the datapad.

His lips tightened. “Yeah. Hera and I wanted to run it past you before telling the others.” He looked at her carefully, his eyes filled with concern. “If you’re not okay with this, we’ll tell Fulcrum to find someone else. No one else will know, and we won’t think any less of you.”

The datapad looked so innocent, but Sabine had to force herself to uncross her arms and took it from Kanan with trembling hands. “Let me look it over first,” she said, a ripple of shame falling down her spine at the way her voice trembled.

Kanan didn’t mention it, just lacing his fingers together as she read. 

Stars. Mandalore. Sundari. She still heard the screams sometimes when she slept. The screams that were her fault — 

She took a breath. Closed her eyes. Opened them. Kanan was still waiting patiently.

Looking over the datapad, she could see why he and Hera were calling the mission a milk run. Just a quick in and out, going nowhere near the more popular areas of the city, picking up medical supplies and prosthetics. Children’s prosthetics, to be specific, which was probably another reason why they were running it past her before telling the rest of the crew — Ezra would insist on them going, he knew how badly his friends needed these —

A hand gently squeezed her shoulder. “Sabine, breathe.”

Sabine took in a gulp of air that she hadn’t realized she desperately needed. “Ezra would want to get these.”

“He would,” Kanan agreed mildly. “But we’re not talking about him right now.”

Sabine pressed her lips together tightly and squeezed the datapad. “It — it says there’s going to be a festival going on while we’d be there,” she said, scrambling for something else to talk about. “What’s it for?” She tried to focus and think of the holidays she knew. There were so many, and a lot of them were only for certain houses or planets in Mandalorian space. It was a good distraction from the way her heart was pounding.

“I believe the Empire calls it the Duchess’ War,” Kanan said mildly. “The festival is celebrating how the Empire came in and ended it.” His mouth twisted slightly.

Sabine echoed his expression with her own. How like the Empire, forcing everyone to celebrate its invasion — and it had been an invasion. Sabine hadn’t been able to see it when she was in the Academy; she had been too young, too naive and trusting that Uncle Gar was telling the truth when he said that the Empire was helping to make Mandalore great again, but now with years away from him and his Supercommandos she could see the truth. 

Even if her mother couldn’t. 

She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. 

Kanan reached out and put a gentle hand onto her shoulder. “You don’t have to answer me right now,” he said. “Just — if you can tell us by tonight, that would be great. In the meantime, think it over as much as you need to, okay?”

Sabine licked her lips again before answering in a very small voice. “Okay.”

He smiled again, that tired, gentle smile of his whenever the topic of Mandalore came up. “I have to go run some errands and prepare for lessons with Ezra, but Hera’s going to be on the ship all day. If you come up with an answer before dinner, let her know.” He slid off of the crate, dusting his hands off. “Don’t stay in here too long, okay?”

Sabine numbly shook her head. “I won’t.” Slowly, she got up as well, following him to the door. It hissed open and they both stepped out into the hallway, Sabine still clutching the datapad to her chest. 

She had begun to turn away from Kanan, going off to think to herself in a private place, when his arm snaked around her shoulders and pulled her against his side in a hug. “Hey, Sabine?”

She looked up at him. He smiled down at her.

“Regardless of what you choose, both me and Hera are proud of you, okay? Just remember that.”

Her throat tightened and she nodded. It still choked her up, hearing those words so plainly stated to her. 

With one more squeeze, Kanan let go of her reluctantly and turned away, going off to run his errands like he said. 

Sabine felt strangely bereft without the warmth of his arm. She watched him go for a few seconds before turning and heading off in her own direction. She’d found a few spots during their time being grounded here where she could find some privacy. She’d see if they were occupied or not, and then sit down and have a good think.

* * *

Unfortunately for Sabine, it seemed that every one of her thinking spots was currently in use. Letting out a small scoff of frustration, she turned away from the finals of a sabbac tournament that was taking place in her last spot and began to walk away on stiff legs.

Damn it. Damn it. She scratched at her hairline in frustration, her gut twisting. In her other hand the datapad weighed heavily, filled with information on the ‘milk run’ — damn it. 

She bit the inside of her cheek as she passed by a group of pilots, chattering loudly. She switched from scratching at her hairline to rubbing her temple, her head already beginning to throb. 

It was the middle of the day on Yavin, and the Resistance base was positively overflowing with people. The first time she had come down to the moon’s surface, when Ezra was giving his testimony on how bad the Academy was, she had thought it was crowded. Now though, with three hundred kids and what felt like half the Jedi Order running around the base at any one time, it was impossible to even get her train of thought out of the station!

No, she wasn’t going to be getting any thinking today if she stayed in the main crush of the base. So, ducking underneath an X-Wing that had been opened up and stepping over a mechanic with a muttered apology, she turned towards the one place that she knew she’d be able to find a little peace and quiet.

Chopper was fooling around with something in the cargo bay as she stepped back onto the Ghost. Turning the top of his his head towards her while his mandibles continued working, he whistled a question at her as she passed by, heading to her room. 

“Just need somewhere quiet to think,” she replied. “Don’t tell Hera yet? She’s waiting for my answer.”

Chopper grunted in doubtful assent. Sabine managed to scrape together enough energy to shoot him a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she said, beginning to climb up the ladder with one hand. “I’ll get Ezra to give you an oil bath.”

The noise Chopper made at that was far more enthusiastic, and got a chuckle out of her as she entered the hallway that lead to their rooms. She’d thought that he would like that. 

The inside of her room was just as she had left it. She hadn’t managed to make it back to her bed after finishing her tea, already dozing with Ezra in front of the holo, and had ended up napping there with him until the day cycle of the base started, filling the ship up with too much noise to sleep through. Her bed was still messy and unmade, the only things missing being the helmets that she had grabbed to return before leaving the ship for the morning, and the faint chemical smell of paint that clung to everything in the room. 

She sighed in relief as the door closed behind her, feeling the tension that had been filling her muscles already beginning to relax as the noise level dipped down to something imperceptible. 

Tossing the datapad up into her bed, she followed it, hauling herself up into the top bunk.

Alright. She had a spot to think. Now…

How did she feel about this?

The thing was — the thing was — if she had any sort of choice she would never go back to to Mandalore or Sundari ever again during her lifetime.

The question here was did she really have that choice?

She’d managed to look over the datapad as she checked her spots and she had seen how they were the only ones that would be able to get to Mandalore in any decent amount of time. She’d seen that their contact there would only talk to a Mandalorian, and that the shipment they were picking up was made up of those medical prosthetics that the Dromund Kaas kids so desperately needed. 

Kanan had said that he and Hera would support her no matter what, but this wasn’t some random shipment of meilooruns or even a crate full of blasters. This was stuff that was really and truly needed, that they couldn’t just go and get somewhere else. Children’s prosthetics, the good ones at least that weren’t just glorified extendable peg legs, were much more carefully tracked than adult ones. If the Resistance didn’t get these ones, then who knew how long it would take to smuggle out another bunch of them?  
It was a good mission, a worthy mission. It just took place on a planet that held nothing but bad memories for her.

Grimacing, Sabine ran a hand down her face and rolled onto her side. Stars, she had been so excited when she had first found out that she would be going to the Sundari Academy. As was traditional, she’d been taught at home by her clan her entire life, but by the time she was twelve years old she had already started to bump up against the limits of her clan’s knowledge. Oh, she knew how to wind a det cord in a dozen different ways, but she wanted more. She wanted to see more of the galaxy, experience things that she had never had a chance to on Krownest. 

So when her mother had called her to main hall of the family stronghold and introduced her to Viceroy Saxon, calling him an old compatriot from her Death Watch days, she’d been excited. Gar Saxon had seemed terribly interesting in those days, and she’d completely ignored the tension that had filled the air as she had entered the hall, the looks that her mother and father kept shooting at each other as she chatted away happily with Saxon about the different battles that he’d been in and what it was like on Mandalore.

Hell, by the time Saxon had actually brought up the idea of her entering the Sundari Academy casually over the dinner table, she’d practically begged her parents to let her go. Saxon had talked about how it would set a good example for the other clans, how it would reassure the Empire that the Mandalore sector was loyal despite all the protests —

She’d been such a little idiot back then. She’d completely ignored her mother’s reluctance to let her go, seeing it simply being clingy and not the worry of a clan leader giving an uncertain ally a possible hostage. She’d walked right into the anooba’s jaws and begged it to bite down.

And bite down it had, leaving her and the rest of Mandalore bleeding.

The thing that she hadn’t understood at the time was that there had been a fierce debate going on within the Mandalore system about Imperial schooling. Specifically, the Empire had begun to make noises about attendance at their Imperial Academies being made mandatory, and no longer allowing the various clans to be in charge of their children’s education. Saxon had come to her mother knowing that Clan Wren’s power was, like every other clan within House Vizsla, based on their obedience to the Empire. If her mother wanted to keep their power within the current power structure, then she could not refuse his request to place Sabine within the Sundari Academy as a ‘shining example of the future’ to the rest of the Mandalore system.

Reaching up, she rubbed at her face again. Young as she had been, she hadn’t yet been instructed in the politics that were a part of leading Clan Wren. The actual political realities of the situation had completely flown over her head that night, and she had begged her mother to let her go, eager to learn new things.

Well, she had learned new things. Like how to get a whole bunch of people killed with her stupidity and naivete.

Sabine groaned and rolled over in her bed as the memories bubbled up. Saxon, with that smug, pleased look on his face praising her — she’d been so happy at the time that she had represented her clan well to the Viceroy, but now that memory just made her feel sick. 

She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to run to Hera and Kanan and say no, never, and accept their hugs and comfort. She wanted to keep on ignoring what had happened during the purges, keeping the memories locked away in the little locked boxes she had shoved to the edges of her memory.

But. But…

Ezra. The other kids. She’d been there, in their mockery of an Academy. Seen what the Empire had done to them, so similar to what they’d done to Mandalorians young and old. How the Empire had left them broken and bleeding. Sure, Ezra had his leg now, but the others were still limping around with empty spaces where their limbs should be.

She could live with never seeing Sundari again, but could she live with not helping the kids?

From the way her stomach was flip-flopping, she didn’t think she could. 

Reaching up, she scrubbed at her face. 

It looked like they were going to Mandalore, then.


	3. On The Other Side

All the plushness of the Imperial transport couldn’t distract Fenn from the sick feeling that was slowly roiling in the pit of his stomach. 

Sitting in his well-padded seat as the ship skimmed over the white, sterile sand of Mandalore’s surface, he stared out the window, wishing that he had dared to drag his feet and not jump at Saxon’s demand that he and the others come a day before the celebrations officially started. The way the wake of the ship stirred up the sand only seemed to draw his attention to the dead state of the soil, dragging his thoughts towards the death that had so recently soaked it through.

There was a hiss as a the door to the cockpit opened. Fenn kept his face turned towards the viewport, but moved his eyes just enough to see who was coming out. He hadn’t been allowed to bring many of his people with him to the celebrations in the first place, under the excuse that the Empire would have more than enough security to keep him and the other Heads safe. When he had been taken aside to ‘talk’ with Saxon, they had been banned from coming along altogether. It made him itch with suspicion. If this was some sort of plot to separate and kill them…

But no. Though it was a Supercommando that stepped into the cabin from the cockpit, Fenn relaxed. The man — boy, really, from the baby fat still clinging to his cheeks — wasn’t wearing a helmet, something that any warrior would have put on if they were expecting combat. His blaster rifle hung from his belt, his hands far away from it.

The boy straightened slightly underneath Fenn’s scrutiny, clearly not fooled by his fake interest in the scenery outside. “We’ll be arriving at Sundari soon, sir,” the boy said stiffly, a Krownest accent curling subtly around his words. 

Fenn nodded. Interesting, or maybe not; Krownest was the home of Clan Wren, part of House Viszla. It made sense that Saxon would stuff his little pet gang with members of clans loyal to his house, but his brief meetings with Ursa Wren had always given him the impression that she wasn’t quite on board with Saxon’s butchery as the Viceroy acted.  
Then again, that meeting had been years ago, after Coruscant had been taken and the Jedi had fallen. People changed.

He had changed, and he hadn’t even been involved in the Purge the same way as Clan Wren had. 

Looking back, he still couldn’t believe how innocently it had started. Just a few planned protests over a new piece of legislation that would require all Mandalorian children to be educated in Imperial schools, rather than the more traditional home-schooling that the clans preferred. That was all. And somehow it had ended with the streets literally running red with Mandalorian blood.

Oh, sure, the Grand Inquisitor had given the excuse that the protests had actually been planned terrorist attacks — overheard thanks to Imperial surveillance — and had even released some of the supposedly incriminating evidence.

However if you gave such excuses even a moment of thought they fell apart. Simply put, the infrastructure needed for the level of surveillance the Empire claimed flat out wasn’t there. The destruction that the civil war had wrought had destroyed much of Mandalore proper’s infrastructure, putting lie to the suggestion that the Empire had used it to gather their information. The thousand and one listening devices that businesses and the Duchess’ government had had in place had been destroyed in the early years of the war and certainly wouldn’t have been replaced to the degree needed for the Empire’s claims to be true. In fact, the infrastructure had been so neglected by the time the Empire moved in that the only way most Mandalorians could communicate with each other were short-range comm units — items that would have had to have been individually hacked for the Empire to listen in on. 

It was impossible, all of it, and everyone knew it. 

But all of the clans in House Viszla had closed ranks and declared their support for the Saxon regime and the Empire, and no one had contradicted them, and the Grand Inquisitor and the Empire had continued on their merry way with no one to stop them.

Not even he had spoken out against them, Fenn thought bitterly to himself. Him, the last Clan Head and House Head of House and Clan Rau. Scion of a long line of warriors that had guarded and fought beside the Last Mand’alor himself, Tarre Viszla. Oh, certainly, they had fought beside others after Tarre Viszla, but none of them had been proper Mand’alors. They had not been supported by all of the clans and Houses, recognized and respected as shining examples of what a Mandalorian should be. They had been warlords, forcing others to bow to them and fight for them rather than being recognized. 

The bone-white sand reflected the light of the sun pitilessly as the ship came closer to the black dome of Sundari. Fenn thought that the darkness of the material was appropriate to his mood as they slipped inside, still in the small transport ship. 

Inside of the dome, the city was mockingly unchanged from the last time Fenn had seen it. Still with the same building-on-building style that was often mimicked by the younger Mandalorian cities but was never quite the same, the glass and durasteel cubes and triangles jutted out into the air, forcing their ship to slow down and weave carefully between them. 

Fenn shifted in his seat, glancing over at the Wren Supercommando again. He was sitting in his seat like there was a landmine underneath it and he had forgotten his jetpack, carefully not looking at him. Fenn didn’t precisely snort at the mental image, but he did let out a a long breath through his nose at the comparison. 

Now what was the boy seemingly so nervous about, he wondered as he turned back to looking out the window. Then he noticed it.

“You know,” Fenn said, carefully, oh so carefully, “I would have thought that Saxon would have wished to meet me at the Imperial Headquarters. Or has he decided that he’s too important to meet with me after dragging me all the way here?”

The Wren boy stiffened even further in his seat, now looking like the mine under his seat had begun beeping its countdown. “Ah, no, sir — the Viceroy would not be so rude —”

Fenn raised an eyebrow, pushing his advantage at the boy’s nervousness. “Really? Then why are we not going anywhere near the Palace?”

The boy opened his mouth but before he could answer the ship shuddered in the unmistakable way that announced that it was landing. The ship comms crackled with static. “We’ve arrived. Commando Wren, if you could escort Alor Rau to the Viceroy?”

The boy — who was a Wren, Fenn had been right — visibly swallowed before standing up and pulling a helmet out from the overhead bins. Placing it over his head, he turned and faced Fenn with a ramrod-straight posture. “Sir,” he said. “If you would follow me?”

Like he had a choice. Fenn pushed down his irritation and simply nodded, not trusting himself to keep his disdain from his voice.

Outside, they were in a part of Sundari that Fenn didn’t recognize. He was somewhat surprised at that; he’d worked with the Duchess before the Clone Wars, and he had rather fancied that he’d seen all of Sundari, but the area that Wren lead him out into was entirely unfamiliar to him.

They had dropped several levels down when he was thinking in the the shuttle; high up above, he could see the more familiar cube-like architecture that had been favoured when the Duchess had first come to power, but down here the buildings were older.

Much older.

Following Wren slowly along a creaking walkway, Fenn’s eyes darted around. He recognized this architecture; like the buildings above, they were shaped like cubes, but they lacked the Kryze-style large panes of glass that marked Sundari architecture these days. That was not to say that they lacked their own grandeur — their walls soared above his head, still covered with the paint and carvings that were a mark of an older building style, but they did not have the delicacy that the Duchess had preferred. They were buildings meant to withstand bombing raids and firefights, even if those things had ended with the birth of the Republic and Tarre Viszla’s accession. The Old City, that was built by the Last Mand’alor, on top of city that had existed there before. The Old City, where the Empire’s enemies had supposedly plotted against them, triggering the Purge.

Long ago, his ancestors would have walked these streets. Now, only the lowest of the Mandalorians, those without even a clan, would be the only ones that would walk here. No one with any shred of power would ever bother to come down here, when the wealth of Mandalore was kept above. 

So why was the Empire here?

As they had walked further away from the ship, Fenn subtly looking around in confusion, he’d started seeing signs of the Empire. Speeder bikes in an alleyway. A huddle of people, wearing what on closer inspection was an unfamiliar but clearly Imperial uniform. The sounds of generators in the distance.

Carefully keeping his confusion off of his face, Fenn tucked his hands behind his back, close to the holdout blaster he’d hidden in his sleeve. He had no idea what was going on here or what Saxon was up to, and he didn’t like it.

It didn’t help that the Imperials that they passed (more and more as they went deeper into the warren that was the Old City)were barely giving him and Wren a glance as they passed by. Gripping his wrist that hid his holdout blaster tightly, he couldn’t keep his eyes from narrowing. Were they being ignored because the Imperials were busy, or because they didn’t want to give away that Fenn was about to be killed?

Before he could decide, though, they reached an open area and Fenn had to pull himself back to the present before he bumped into Wren.

“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily.

‘Here’, Fenn assumed, was the main encampment of the Imperials in the Old City. Built into a cavelike part of the city, with a built-up tangle of buildings high up above forming a ceiling, the ground of what once had been a great courtyard of some sort was coated in various tents and transports, the alleyways leading here too narrow to allow ships through. Imperials rushed about the dimly-lit area dizzyingly, chatter filling the air. Roundheads were marching about, repairing armour and weapons, and scientists were staring at various readouts, ducking in and out of the tents set up and chattering loudly at each other in technical jargon and acronyms. Wren had started moving again after his announcement and belatedly Fenn followed him, this time looking around much less subtly. 

The courtyard was truly massive; but they did not seem to be dawdling in it. Sweeping through the crowds, they headed through it at a steady clip, not pausing to speak to anyone. With most of the lights pooled around the various labs, it was hard to see far into the distance, but in the shadows Fenn thought that he could see a massive wall that seemed to be their goal, judging by the speed in which they were heading for it. 

…No, not a wall, he realized as they got closer to it. A set of doors, towering above them, even larger than the ones that had been set into the front of the Duchess’ Palace up above. And carved into it — 

His stomach dropped at the unmistakable sight of Tarre Vizsla, the Last Mand’alor, his darksaber held aloft above his head and surrounded by the stars of the Mandalore system. The paint that had covered the doors once had faded away from the passage of time, but he could imagine the glory of it in its heyday, after the end of the Thousand Years of Darkness. 

And there, the seeming goal of their hike, nestled like a rotworm’s egg at the base of the doors, was a large, well-lit tent, its main opening spilling out golden light that lit up the Supercommandos standing guard at it.

“Wren,” the one on the left rumbled as they walked up the low steps towards the tent, “you’re just in time. The Viceroy was starting to wonder where you were.”

Wren’s shoulders stiffened. “This place is a warren,” he said defensively. “I came as quickly as I could.”

The Supercommando on the right chuckled, the noise not friendly in the slightest. “You don’t have to convince us. You have to convince him.”

Wren’s face was covered and he was facing away from Fenn, but Fenn could taste the nervousness rolling off of him from where he was standing. Following the boy inside, he was careful to school his face into a more neutral position than previously, even as he mentally made a note of the exchange. This could come in handy later.

Inside of the tent was barren. A holotable with a display of what looked to be a map of the Old City projected above it, an Imperial banner hanging on one of the walls, and what looked to be a blaster rack on the wall opposite. The room was small, the rest of the tent clearly blocked off by a hanging wall of cloth. And standing at the holotable —

“Ah. Wren.” Saxon’s eyes crinkled in amusement as he looked away from the map at the two of them. He was wearing his red and white armour, the helmet set down on the edge of the holotable. “And Rau. Good. Wren, you’re dismissed. Go find Onyo, she’ll give you your orders.”

“Sir,” Wren said, his tone unreadable. He bowed his head and left, leaving Fenn alone with the Imperial Viceroy of Mandalore.

For a moment, there was silence between the two of them. Thankfully, it seemed that Saxon was in no mood to wait for Fenn to speak first. “So, Rau, you’re no doubt wondering why I brought you down here.”

“You’d be correct,” Fenn replied, unable to keep a hint of disdain from his voice. He crossed his arms over his chest. “This looks like a rather large installation. I didn’t think that you were normally fond of letting those outside of your house near them.”

Saxon snorted. “Well, luckily for you this isn’t a normal situation.” Stepping out from behind the holotable, he tucked his hands behind his back and peered at Fenn closely. “Tell me, how much do you know about the Imperial Reclamation Division?” 

Many things, none of them flattering. Fenn didn’t say that though; instead, he chose his words to be as neutral and inoffensive as possible. “They’re an arm of the Imperial Security Bureau that specialize in studying the cultures and artifacts of the various planets in the Empire.”

“Oh good, you have heard of them,” Saxon said. He sounded oddly smug, an impression that the smirk playing around at the edges of his mouth only added to. “That will make this much faster.”

Fenn’s spine prickled with suspicion as Saxon stepped closer. “I’m assuming there’s a point to you bringing me here?”

“Yes, actually,” Saxon said, his smirk widening. “You see, recently our government and the Reclamation Division have been working together to well, reclaim parts of Mandalore’s heritage.”

Fenn tensed. Something about how he was emphasizing those last two words was setting off alarms in his head. 

He looked closer at Saxon. He hadn’t paid much attention to what was hanging off of the man’s belt, but now…

The smirk had widened into a full-blown grin. Casually, the barrel-chested man reached down to his belt and unclipped the item that had caught Fenn’s attention. “I see you’ve spotted it. One of the first successes of our partnership with the Reclamation Division.”

Fenn couldn’t breathe. The two of them were standing very close together now, just a foot of space between them. If he had wanted to, he could have attacked. Gotten his blaster out and taken Saxon out before he could shout for help. But he couldn’t; not as he realized exactly what Saxon was holding. 

Not as he activated the black blade of the Darksaber and held its crackling energy up between them.

“The Darksaber,” Saxon said unnecessarily. “I don’t have to tell you how much this means for our people.”

Fenn broke off his staring to glare at the man, forgetting for a moment that he was much more powerful than Fenn and could call down a strike on the Protectors —

But Saxon just chuckled, like he was watching a tooka kitten trying to be fierce. “Oh, don’t glare at me. It’s only appropriate that the leader of Mandalore holds the Darksaber, not even you can argue with that.”

Fenn begged to differ but managed to hold his tongue. “You still haven’t told me what you want,” he growled out instead.

Saxon smirked at him again, pulling the Darksaber back and shutting it off. “Maps. Specifically, maps of Sundari’s Old City.”

For a moment, Fenn was surprised. Maps, of all things? “What would you need those for? You already seem to have made yourself quite comfortable here.”

Saxon’s lip curled slightly. “Don’t be stupid. I mean maps of the old Old City. The Undercity.”

Fenn’s lips tightened. “What on earth would you need those for?” he asked, not denying that his family had the items in question. It would have been futile, anyway; everyone knew that House Rau had been the first Great House to join up with Tarre Viszla back in the day, and that they had assisted in the great building projects of his reign. Of course they still had the old plans of the original city.

The curl of Saxon’s lip developed into a full-blown sneer. “Nothing that you need to know, Rau.”

Fenn bristled. “This might shock you, Viceroy,” he said slowly, “but some people need a reason to hand over valuable family heirlooms. Why should I give you those maps?”

Saxon’s eyes narrowed. Leaning forward, he rested a hand on top of the holo-table. “How about, if you give me the maps, I won’t decide that Concord Dawn needs to be checked for terrorists? Does that sound like a good deal to you?”

Fenn’s head jerked back before he could stop it at that threat. “You would —”

“Keep the Mandalore system safe?” Saxon said, his voice sickeningly innocent. “Of course I would. As Viceroy, that’s my job description.”

Disgust and fear rose up in Fenn’s throat, and all he could do was stare at the man. Fenn knew that the man had been in power during the Fifth Uprising; for him to use the threat of another on him —

Gritting his teeth he spat out the words. “Fine. You’ll have them by the time the celebration starts.”

A wide smirk replaced the sneer on his face, and he straightened back up. “Good,” he nearly cooed. “I’m glad to hear that.”

Fenn could barely stand to look at him. “May I go?”

Saxon gestured graciously towards the tent door, like he was some sort of host. “But of course,” he said. “Wren will escort you to your lodgings while you’re staying here.”

Fenn grunted out something that could be considered thanks, and turned, ready to leave this filth’s presence.

Then, just as he was halfway to the door, Saxon spoke again. “Oh, and Rau?”

Fenn stopped and turned his head around. What now?

Saxon was still smirking. “Enjoy the celebrations.”

* * *

Alexsandr Kallus, agent of the Imperial Security Bureau, was tired. The sun on Mandalore had gone down hours ago, according to the chronometer, and the building command center that he’d taken up residence in for his time on the planet had long since emptied of its bureaucrats. But he couldn’t go to bed just yet; not while there were still things to do. In front of him on his desk his screen glowed blue, the words of the fifteenth report he’d looked over in the last hour picked out in white. 

When he had first heard of what had happened at the Inquisitorius Academy, he had felt sick. So many children injured and kidnapped by the Republic Remnant, disappeared into the dark corners of the galaxy that the rebels lurked in. The sheer length of the list of names, three hundred cadets stolen — and the fact that the Jedi were also involved, according to witnesses…

Well, Alexsandr didn’t think that he was too far off in calling this a disaster. 

Immediately, he had requested that he be allowed into the investigation to find the children. He had argued that he was already hunting the Republic Remnant, what harm would there be in narrowing down his focus even further? He had even been born on Coruscant, he knew all the stories of what the Jedi could do!

Personally, he thought that it was that final argument that got him the assignment; most of the Imperial command structure was made up of individuals from the Mid- and Outer-Rim, who had rarely seen the Jedi. Certainly, the other agents had thought that, and hadn’t been shy about letting him know. But Alexsandr had ignored them, focusing on his work.

Work that was now, after six months of careful tracking, finally coming to fruition. Taking in the reports of the attack and how the children had been injured by the Jedi as they were dragged away, he had quickly come to the conclusion that tracking medical inventory would most likely be the quickest way to track the rebels down. Thankfully, child prosthetics were already closely watched, so it was no trouble to make sure that he was alerted to suspicious shipments. The particular one that he was looking over right now looked especially promising; they had managed to scoop up the smugglers that had been handling the shipments and it had turned out that they had contacts within the Fulcrum Network. The smugglers were of course still being questioned, but he had managed to get enough pass codes out of their leader to set up a meeting with another group of Fulcrum’s people.

Thus his presence on Mandalore. 

The beep of the office’s holo-comm going off raised his gritty eyes from the last-minute details of the sting he was going over. Frowning, he reached over and clicked it on to answer; as far as he knew, no one else should still be up. “Hello?”

“Ah, Agent Kallus, is it?” The cold, smug face of Mandalore’s Viceroy Gar Saxon greeted Alexsandr. “Good, I caught you before you left for the night.”

“Oh, I’m far from turning in,” Alexsandr replied stiffly. “There’s far too much to do.”

“Ah yes, your operation,” Saxon said. “About that…”

Alarm shot through Alexsandr. After all this work, surely he wouldn’t pull the plug — but it had happened before to him — “I’m sorry, is there a problem?”

Saxon gestured carelessly. “No, no, though there is, I’m afraid, some last minute things that we need to discuss with you.”

Alexsandr clenched his jaw, still tense. “Well, we’re talking now.”

Saxon shook his head. “This is something that shouldn’t be done over comms, I’m afraid,” he said. “If you aren’t too busy, I was hoping that you could come by?”

The tension wasn’t going away, but Alexsandr did his best to keep it off his face. “Of course. I can come right away.”

“Excellent,” Saxon replied, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “Just what I was about to request. We’ll meet you my office, say, five minutes?”

“Certainly,” Alexsandr said, already starting to stand up. Then his brain caught up to what Saxon had said. “Wait, we?”

But the call had already been ended.

Alexsandr hesitated for moment. Then made sure to gather up all of his files before heading out. It didn’t sound like the Viceroy was about to shut the operation down, but there were plenty of other things that they could be planning to do, the least of which being taking him off of it. If this was some sort of attempt at that, he was not going to just roll over and let it happen.

The doors to the Viceroy’s office were guarded by two of his Supercommandos. As Alexsandr walked up he nodded to them briskly and got a nod in return as he passed through into the office. Some Imperials had a less-than-flattering view of the Supercommandos, not liking that the Mandalorians had their own special forces rather than relying on the Death Troopers like the rest of the Empire, but Alexsandr always made a point of showing them respect. Before he had joined the ISB, he’d been a trooper, and he still had good memories of his boys. His respect was echoed by the men underneath him, and he was proud to say that his people had the smoothest working relationship with the notoriously prickly Mandalorians that he’d ever heard.

The inside of the Viceroy’s office was dominated by the large, blood-red banner behind his desk, proudly displaying the Imperial Crest in black. Saxon was sitting in front of it, leaning back in his chair with his fingers interlaced across his armoured stomach. Alexsandr spared a thought to wonder if the man ever took the armour off as he crossed the room to the desk and stopped, folding his hands behind his back. “Viceroy. You requested my presence?”

“That I did.” The Viceroy’s chair was one that swiveled, and the barrel-chested man swayed himself back and forth absentmindedly as he greeted Alexsandr. “Glad you could make it.”

“As am I,” said a deep, cold, Core-accented voice from behind Alexsandr.

It was only from long experience and training that he managed to keep himself from jumping. As it was, he still looked over his shoulder sharply to see who was speaking.

A chill went down his spine as he recognized the tall, pale figure dressed in black. Turning and taking a step back, he swallowed and bowed his head jerkily. “Grand Inquisitor.”

“Agent Kallus,” the Grand Inquisitor replied, a faint note of mockery in his voice.

A mixture of alarm and anger sparked down Alexsandr’s spine. Bumping up against the Viceroy’s desk, he forced himself to stop and stand still. “My apologies. I wasn’t aware that you were on-planet.”

“Oh, it’s a recent thing,” the Grand Inquisitor said indulgently. “Though I will admit that I’ve been following your work for a while now. Your devotion to tracking the rebels has been — inspiring.”

Somehow, that sentence didn’t feel as complimentary as it might have in someone else’s mouth. Alexsandr had to force himself not to shift his weight from one foot to the other. 

“But I’m sure that you have better things to do with your time than soak up compliments,” the Grand Inquisitor continued, his manner breezy. “Your operation, from what I understand, is about to come to fruition.”

Alexsandr didn’t take his eyes off of the tall alien. Highly ranked within the Empire or not, the Grand Inquisitor had never been a pleasant individual to work with in all of Alexsandr’s experience. Yes, the Inquisitorius often passed on valuable information to the ISB, but something about the black-armoured figures that he passed set the hairs on his neck to standing up. The information that they passed on was a little too detailed, a little too accurate — certainly nothing that smelled of treason but still, just a little too — much.

Against his will, a memory began to rise to the surface of his memories. Of an open plain, and a house with a farmer. Of a boy, with brilliant blue eyes and a terrible open wound carving across his face, the black-gloved fingers of the Grand Inquisitor digging into his arms.

Ezra Bridger. The son of Ephraim and Mira Bridger, also known as the “Voices of Hope” on Lothal. Abandoned at the age of seven when his parents were arrested and then disappeared until the Grand Inquisitor apparently found him. 

And took him. Alexsandr hadn’t been impressed by what he saw that night on the Lothali plains; the way the Inquisitor had been going on about the necessity of retrieving the boy, he had expected someone who at least looked like he wasn’t behind on more than a few weeks worth of meals. Honestly, if you had stuck him in a crowd of street urchins Alexsandr would have been hard-pressed to pick him out. But for some reason, the memory of that thin, frightened face from that night had stuck in his mind, bubbling up at the most inconvenient times.

Tucking his hands behind his back, Alexsandr pushed the memory away. He had to focus on the here and now, and answering the Grand Inquisitor. “Yes, my team and I have managed to set up a meeting with a cell from the Fulcrum Network. Once we’ve captured them, we will be that much closer to finding the missing cadets.”

The corners of the Grand Inquisitor’s mouth curled up in an oddly satisfied way. “That’s good to hear. However — I’m afraid that I have a request for you, regarding this.”

Alexsandr kept his face still, but internally bit back a curse. The way the big alien spoke, this was not a request; it was a command. 

“You see, considering the nature of this operation, I’ve realized that the Inquisitorius has been somewhat lacking in its cooperation with the ISB. And considering how close you are to capturing part of the Rebel Alliance, I rather thought that it might be nice, in a gesture of goodwill, to assist in the final takedown.”

Alexsandr didn’t need long to realize what the man was suggesting. “You wish to join the operation?” he asked, his mind racing.

The Grand Inquisitor chuckled. “No, no, not me,” he said in a mockingly pleasant voice. “Unfortunately, I have other things on my mind. Another assault on a rebel base, with a certain Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

Alexsandr couldn’t keep himself from stiffening at that name. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Butcher of Batonn, was working with the Grand Inquisitor? Even his hardened stomach flip-flopped at the idea of the two men working together on an assignment. What would the body count be, an entire planet?

No. No. This was the rebels that he was thinking of, not some group of helpless civilians.

He let out a breath. “May I ask, then, who you have in mind to join my group?”

The Grand Inquisitor stepped back slightly, gesturing with an arm towards a shadowy corner of the room. Alexsandr mused for a second that it was rather odd that the Viceroy’s office was so poorly lit, with deep shadows only slightly broken up by pools of light, but the thoughts stuttered to a stop as he saw movement.

Slow and stiff, like they had recently had to relearn how to walk, a figure staggered out of the shadows and into the pool of light surrounding the Viceroy’s desk. Tall — almost as tall as the Grand Inquisitor himself — and wearing a broad, flat hat on his head, Alexsandr swallowed at the sight of the blank white eyes hovering over the black muzzle that covered the grey-skinned alien’s nose and jaw. Those eyes — the alien had to be blind, but he was looking directly at Alexsandr…

“The Fifth Brother,” the Grand Inquisitor introduced, an odd, smug look on his face. “He was actually injured at the Inquisitorius Academy during the attack, so I can assure you that he is quite eager to cooperate.”

Alexsandr swallowed again as those blank white eyes didn’t waver from his face. “Injured. May I ask how?”

The white eyes narrowed.

The Grand Inquisitor answered blithely. “A broken spine, a cracked skull, three snapped ribs, a dislocated shoulder, etcetera, etcetera,” he said pleasantly. The dangerous air around the Fifth Brother increased, sending chills down Alexsandr’s spine, but the Grand Inquisitor seemed quite immune. “I assure you though, he’s quite recovered now.”

“I see,” Alexsandr said, nodding his head slightly. “He’s fully combat-capable, though? I know that there can be quite a jump between recovered and combat-ready —”

“He is entirely ready,” the Grand Inquisitor said, and a certain coldness had abruptly replaced the breezy pleasantness. “Agent Kallus.”

Alexsandr couldn’t keep himself from pressing his lips together tightly before replying. “Understood. I suppose then, that I should get him up to speed before tomorrow’s raid.”  
The Grand Inquisitor’s teeth were very sharp as he grinned down at him. “That would be for the best,” he said. He gestured again, sharp and imperious, in a clear dismissal. “After all, it is essential that the children are retrieved from the Jedi before it’s too late.”

Alexsandr nodded again, unsure of how to reply. Turning to the Fifth Brother, he cleared his throat. “This way, then,” he said gruffly. Those white eyes were boring a hole into the side of his head. “I’ll explain how this is going to go in my office.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, hope you liked this peep at what the Imperials are up to! Let me know in the comments!


	4. Separation

Sabine ran her fingers through her freshly-dyed hair nervously as she left her room, already missing the comforting weight of her armour on her body. She felt uncomfortably light without it, like she was floating in zero-G without a tetherline, a sensation that made her usually strong stomach flip-flop uneasily. 

But wearing it on Mandalore would raise questions. After everything that had happened there during the Purge, looking like anything but a normal spacer would bring down questions on the crew that they couldn’t afford, and Sabine wasn’t about to risk that. Even the satchel slung over her shoulder, filled with a few small tools and some bombs that were easily disguised as junk was perilously close to more danger than she was comfortable with.

The door to the cockpit hissed open, making the others look up as she entered. 

“Sabine,” Hera said, glancing at her briefly before turning back to the displays, “good timing. I was about to call you, we’ll be exiting hyperspace in five.”

“You dyed your hair,” Ezra commented, swiveling his chair back and forth restlessly with one leg. “I wasn’t expecting black.”

Sabine grimaced and ran her fingers through her hair again. “Yeah,” she said. “I normally would have gone for something brighter but —” She spotted Kanan looking at her with concern in his blue-green eyes. Her own gaze skittered away, and she played with a black strand. “— But I figured that it would probably be best to keep a low profile.”

Zeb rumbled, low in his chest. “That why you’re not wearing your armour?” he said, his tone making the sentence not quite a question.

Sabine shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, also avoiding his gaze as she sat down. “Most people wearing beskar’gam nowadays are either rebels or working for the Empire, so…” She trailed off and shrugged again. 

Kanan was still looking at her. She ignored him.

Outside of the cockpit, the starlines of hyperspace disappeared, revealing the white speckles of stars against the inky void of space. It was beautiful, the contrast between the white and black, some white clustered closer together in streams of light and other parts alone in the dark like the first snowflake in a storm. Marring the beauty, however, was the planet of Mandalore dominating the front viewport.

Pale white and dusty-looking even from where they were, the planet was surrounded by the angular shapes of several star destroyers and other Imperial ships, wrapping around it like a choke-chain on an anooba. Other ships, the junkers and freighters endemic to merchants and smugglers alike, darted in between the lines and the planet, but their shapes were small and scattered, dashing against the Empire’s bold lines like sprays of water.

Sabine bit the inside of her cheek. It was just like when she first came to Mandalore to enter the Academy, unchanged except that now she was on one of the little freighters rather than Saxon’s personal transport. Memories of that first look bubbled up; her excitement and questions towards the supercommandos, the heavy weight of Saxon’s hand on her thin shoulder —

The comms crackled. “Unidentified freighter, this is Imperial Traffic Control. Please identify yourself.” 

The traffic controller’s tone was bored and disinterested. Sabine pushed away the memories and tried to focus on that difference; coming in on the Viceroy’s ship, everyone had been much more polite in their manners, trying to make a good impression. This time, no one cared about them. They’d be in and out with no trouble at all.

“Imperial Traffic Control, this is the Starskimmer,” Hera replied, her tone crisp and businesslike. “Here to drop off a shipment and pick a new one up. Transmitting ID numbers now.”

“ID recieved,” the traffic controller said after a moment. “It checks out. Enjoy your stay.” He didn’t sound like he meant the words at all, his voice monotone. 

Very different from the last time Sabine had done this.

After that, it was quick to reach Sundari and dock at one of their several spaceports. The white sand of the planet’s surface blurred past the viewport, washing past Sabine as she blankly stared out. The cockpit was quiet as they did so, no one seeming very willing to talk. Ezra’s seat was squeaking as he continued to swivel it back and forth, his eyes bouncing from her to Zeb, who was leaning against the wall, to Kanan, who had turned back to the dashboard, and back again. 

She should say something, she thought as the ship settled, the engines clinking as they died. Something to end this silence. As they headed down the ramp, though, and she saw the spaceport, her tongue refused to move. Standing at the end of the ramp as Hera talked to the port authority and looking around, it was all so familiar —

“— security measures are needed for the safety of Mandalore’s population, of course,” Saxon said from a large projection screen over the large doors leading to the rest of the spaceport. “As we will be welcoming the Heads of the Great Houses as a part of the celebrations, we unfortunately will have to strengthen them further —”

In the fuzziness of the holo, she couldn’t make out a lot of detail, but Sabine suspected that even in person she wouldn’t be able to see any difference between the Viceroy then and the Viceroy now. Square-jawed and white-haired, he stared directly into the camera like he was giving orders to soldiers rather than ‘explaining’ the change in security levels. It was the same as when he had spoken to her, after —

She turned her head away. A bit too sharply, likely, considering how Kanan stirred from where he was standing, Ezra nearly attached to his hip. However, it wasn’t him that then walked over to her.

Zeb, who had been hanging back on the ramp, casually strolled over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

Sabine looked down at her boots, fiddling with the flap on her satchel. “I’m fine.”

Zeb hummed at her reply. “Fine fine, or just fine?” he asked.

Sabine felt her mouth tighten. “Fine fine.”

Thankfully, he didn’t directly call her out on that. “Pity,” he noted instead. “I was kind of hoping to have some company other than that bucket of bolts.” He jerked his head back at the interior of the ship, where Chopper was…doing whatever he did when they weren’t there. 

Sabine shrugged off his hand. “You shouldn’t be stuck with him for long,” she said. “This should be a quick in and out, and if we weren’t on Mandalore —”

“I could come along,” Zeb said dryly. “Yeah, believe me, even if I didn’t stick out as a Lasat I wouldn’t be going anywhere on this rock. Poodoo I saw here hit a little too close to home thanks.”

She could hear the silent offer. She had heard him talking about it on the way here, and knew that if she walked up to Kanan and Hera right now and asked to stay, citing what had happened here, they’d let her without comment. Heck, they probably would have Ezra stay back as well; Sabine knew that Kanan had been looking for an excuse that would actually keep him from just following them to the trade-off, he’d probably thank her.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t just spend her time here, in this place, waiting on the ship. She needed to see the rest of Sundari; she needed to see what her actions had done to the heart of Mandalore.

Turning back to Zeb, she tried to smile at him. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Kanan and Hera and Ezra will be with me, and we all have comms so we’ll be in contact with you through everything.”

Zeb peered down at her closely, his expression doubtful. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” she said firmly.

“Alright, we’re good with the port authority,” Hera said, walking back towards the four of them. “Are we ready to go?”

Kanan glanced back at Sabine. She patted Zeb’s arm and stepped forward, towards him and Ezra. “I’m good,” she said, sticking her hands in her pockets.

Hera, thankfully, only looked closely at her for a second. “Alright,” she said. “In that case, we should get going. I don’t want to keep our contact waiting. Zeb, do you have the crate loaded up?”

Zeb frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, but nodded. “Grav-lift is ready to go.”

“Good. Kanan? Would you and Ezra mind pushing?”

“No problem,” Ezra said before Kanan could answer. He trotted over to the ramp eagerly. Sabine envied him a little; to him, being here just meant that he’d soon be able to help his friends.

She ended up walking beside Hera as they left the port. With both Kanan and Ezra handling the crate filled with credits and supplies, it was up to the two of them to get everyone to the drop-off point. As they walked, though, Sabine found herself looking around, trying to spot the differences between this walk and the ones she took when she was still with the Empire. 

There was depressingly little. Even when she had first come to the city with Saxon, when she’d still been so naive, she had been able to feel the tension in the air. The layer of fear, covered up with an almost hysterical cheerfulness, because this was what the Mandalorian people wanted right? To be warriors again? The posters plastered everywhere, giving the citizens friendly reminders that it was their duty as good Imperial citizens to keep an eye out for those traitorous rebels, otherwise the Empire would have to come down again and no one wanted that, right?

Sabine hunched her shoulders. No, no one wanted that ever again. 

Hera looked away from the street sign she’d been squinting at and gently bumped her hand against Sabine’s. “You alright?” she asked quietly.

Sabine couldn’t get her shoulders to relax but she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Just…it hasn’t changed much, you know?”

Hera looked at her sympathetically. “I understand,” she said quietly. “Ryloth’s had the same sort of problem for a while.” Gently, she slipped her hand into Sabine’s and gave it a squeeze. “If you want, we can talk about it when we get back to the ship?”

Sabine almost refused in a knee-jerk reaction. But then — why not? What did she have to prove, she asked herself? So instead she squeezed back and flashed a smile at Hera. “Yeah,” she said. “If we could?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hera said. “Right now, though, would you mind giving me a bit of help? I think I may have gotten us a bit lost.”

“Sure.” Sabine stepped closer and looked at the street sign as well. “Where do we need to be?”

“The contact said it was called ‘The Street of Smiths?’”

Sabine blinked in surprise. “The Street of Smiths? Are you sure that’s the place?”

“I am,” Hera said. “You know it?”

Letting her chin fall down to her chest, Sabine furrowed her brow. “Yeah, I know it,” she said. “It’s just —”

How to explain it?

Sundari was a city built on itself. Started as one of the underground compounds for some forgotten clan back when Mandalore was more than a white and grey desert, over time it had grown more and more to accomodate the clan’s family and allies until it could finally be called a city. Then, as the Clan Wars got worse and worse, destroying their environment, the city had begun to dig in and down, hiding from the bombs and attacks. It had begun to trade hands frequently. Victors started and abandoned projects to put their stamp on the city. Families moved in and out as the pressures of war demanded. Digging deeper and deeper, they left a hodgepodge of building styles that could be dated like layers of sediment. 

Then, after the Thousand Years of Darkness and the Clan Wars had ended, Tarre Viszla, the Last Mand’alor, had settled in the city, declaring it Mandalore’s official capital. It was his headquarters that had formed the base of the Duchess’ Palace today, the first building set up above ground in millennia, and his building projects and their architecture that formed the basis of the traditional Mandalorian architecture that surrounded them, meant to be built on itself like no previous forms had been. He knew that the land that was safe to build on was rare, and that it would be a long time before they could leave the bounds of their cities. 

“The Street of Smiths is still a bit away,” she finally said. “I mean, down. It’s in the Old City.” Kanan and Ezra had come up as they were talking, and were now paying attention to her words. Kanan especially seemed interested; she wasn’t surprised, she knew that when he had a chance he enjoyed history pads. “Sundari’s a lot like Coruscant, all built up on itself. The Old City is mostly the lower levels, built just after the end of the Clan Wars.”

“The Clan Wars?” Ezra asked.

Kanan looked down at him fondly. “Mandalorians love their families and fighting,” he said. “Before they officially joined the Republic, there was always five or six of them fighting each other.”

“It was a little more complicated than that,” Sabine protested. “But yeah, they’re that part of the city. Anyways, not a lot of people live that deep anymore —”

“Why?” Ezra asked. “I mean, I didn’t exactly see a lot of towns coming in and your planet looks like a desert, I kind of got the impression that real estate would be in high demand.”

Sabine pressed her lips together tightly. “The Empire.”

Ezra blinked, and then realized what she was saying. “Oh,” he said, his eyes getting big. “Oh, man, sorry Sabine I didn’t —”

“It’s fine,” she said, cutting him off. She looked away, into the people scurrying past with their heads down. “You didn’t know.”

She realized that she was still holding Hera’s hand when the other woman squeezed it. “Can you get us there?” she asked.

Sabine had never been so grateful for Hera’s focus on the mission. “Yeah,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”

* * *

In the Academy, Sabine hadn’t exactly been popular. Coming in with the Viceroy of Mandalore as her personal sponsor, she had run the gamut of jealousy and sucking up that made it hard to tell who was really her friend. One girl, however — one girl had managed to make herself stand out from the crowd of falsely admiring faces to reach Sabine and create a true friendship.

Ketsu Onyo. 

Rough, her family not associated with any recognized clan, the other girl had clawed and fought for her place in the Academy, the exact opposite of Sabine’s situation. She didn’t have a sponsor to help her through the courses, or the promise of some relative ‘putting in a good word’ for her once she graduated. The other students that tried to get in with Sabine had scorned her, but Sabine had been fascinated. 

That was probably what had attracted her to the other girl; the sheer level of not giving a kriff about what anyone else thought about her in favour of keeping her eye on the prize. It was like a breath of fresh air in the crab bucket of the Academy. Sabine had been drawn to her, like a comet caught in a gravity well, and Ketsu wary but open to her overtures of friendship.

It was Ketsu that had taught her the secret ways down to the Old City. It was Ketsu that told her stories about what it was like to grow up there, and how quickly things had changed for her family thanks to the Empire and their acceptance of any Mandalorian into their Academy. Ketsu that showed her a side of Mandalore that she had never seen in her family’s compound, a variety and life that felt so foreign and yet so familiar to her.

Now, as she lead the crew through the narrow streets of the Old City, those memories seemed like a dream. When Ketsu had taken her down here, the streets had been filled with people and chatter. Maybe the residents didn’t see the sun this far down, but the air had still been filled with light and music, the bonds of family that Mandalorians held sacred on display for everyone to see. 

Now, though? After the Purge, the deaths, and the Empire — there was nothing. No one was left to light the lanterns that still hung forlornly from the wires that crisscrossed the streets. No one left to sing, or dance, or fill the air with the scent of their cooking. There was just darkness and silence, barely broken by the few still-working lights set into the lightpoles that arced away from the buildings around them. People skittered between the buildings with their heads down, looking at them suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes. There was no more singing and dancing, just suspicion and scrabbling to survive.

The others had stopped talking as they walked deeper into the Old City, a small mercy. This place was a tomb, now, for all those considered ‘undesirable’ by the Empire. It felt like speaking would be desecrating the graves of all of those that had been killed at the Empire, and the Grand Inquisitor’s, hands. 

Of course, such things couldn’t last forever. Sabine still jumped as Hera spoke in a low whisper. “Are we near the meeting place?” 

The Street of Smiths had earned its name back in the days of the Last Mand'alor; under his rule, it had been the center of beskar’gam production and refinement. As time moved on, so had the smiths, but before the Purge it had still had the reputation as one of the artistic centers of not just Sundari but Mandalore itself. Sabine had heard of it even on Krownest, and had visited it several times with Ketsu. Several evenings had been spent simply wandering up and down it, looking at all the wares on display and buying little snacks that you couldn’t get anywhere else.

They had been one of the first neighbourhoods ‘purged’ by the Empire under the Grand Inquisitor and the Viceroy’s orders.

“It’s just up ahead,” Sabine said quietly, not looking at the other woman. She stuck her hands into her pockets. 

“Hey!”

Sabine jumped again as an unfamiliar voice hailed them in a whisper. With how quiet things were here, it sounded as loud as a shout. 

A human man, dressed in the same ragged clothing as the others they had seen down here, poked his head out of a shadow-filled doorway. Pale-faced and looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, with a combover that fooled precisely no one, he gestured towards them.

None of them made a move towards them. Coming to a stop, Sabine allowed herself to be nudged behind Kanan as he pushed himself in front of her protectively. Hera moved closer to him as he did so, the two of them forming a defensive wall between the man and her and Ezra. 

“Sorry buddy, we’re not here to buy anything,” Kanan said in a harsh voice. 

Beside her, Ezra shuffled slightly closer to her. 

The man bared his teeth in an oddly hysterical smile. “Have you brought fuel for the forge?” he asked in an odd cadence.

Hera’s shoulders had been squared, ready for trouble. Once the man had said that odd sentence, though, they relaxed. “Yes, to re-light the fires.” She cocked her head to one side. “You’re our contact, then?”

The man’s smile became a little less hysterical. “Yes. Come, in here, this shouldn’t be done in the open.”

No shit, Sabine thought, looking around. She couldn’t see anyone watching, but from the way people had been scurrying around, there was obviously still an Imperial presence down here.

Regardless of how obvious the statement was, they followed him into the darkened building. Working lights were far and few between in what seemed to be a small warehouse; after a small foyer where a single bulb flickered and buzzed, the building opened up, the ceiling heightening but still being lit only with a few dull white lights. With the towers of crates that surrounded them, hemming them in, they were more often left in deep pools of shadow than actually able to see where they were going. It was only the man’s pale scalp, visible through his combover, that kept them from getting lost. 

Soon, though, they were slowing down and stopping in front of a large crate sitting on a hoverlift in the middle of a clearing under a pool of light. The man scuttled towards it with an air of relief, patting it as he came close. “It’s all here, just like you asked.”

“Mmm, we’ll be the judge of that, thanks,” Kanan said. “Mind popping it open before we hand over your pay?”

Sabine frowned a little at the man’s reaction to that. Previous contacts had never so much as batted an eyelash at that; this one, though, gained an even shinier forehead at that. Dabbing at it with a stained rag that he pulled from his jumpsuit pocket, his eyes darted around. “W-what, is Fulcrum’s word not enough?”

Sabine watched Hera raise an eyebrow as Kanan’s mouth twisted into a frown. “You shouldn’t be saying that name so carelessly,” Kanan chided. “Alone or not.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the man apologized. “Things have been — tense lately. Everyone’s on edge with the festivities coming up. The Empire wants things to go off without a hitch.”

“That’s no reason for carelessness though,” Hera said. 

“Now, pop it open and we’ll be on our way,” Kanan chimed in. 

The man nodded jerkily and began to do so, the locks on the crate releasing with a chorus of hisses. 

As he did so, Sabine shifted her weight from one leg to the other, irritated. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, and maybe it was just a side effect of being on Mandalore again, but something about this whole thing was making her nerves jumpy.

Later, looking back, she would thank that jumpiness. It made her sharper that day; it made her pay closer attention to their contact.

Because of that, she would be looking at him as he finished removing the last of the locks on the crate. In any other drop-off, she wouldn’t have seen the contact’s sleeve ride up a little on his arm, exposing his wrist. And she wouldn’t have seen the tell-tale puncture marks that spoke of Imperial ‘hospitality’, and all that that entailed.

But today, she did see all of that. Her eyes widening, she grabbed Kanan’s sleeve as he stepped forward to look into the crate. “Kanan, his wrist —”

Hearing the urgency in her voice, he looked at the contact. From the way his eyes widened, he too saw the marks on the man’s wrists. 

And the contact saw their expressions. Kanan’s hand lashed out, but he was too slow. The man skipped back, shrieking. “They know! They know!”

Beside Sabine, Ezra’s head snapped up. “The Empire!” he shouted, grabbing her arm. 

Then the roundheads that had been hiding in the shadowy paths between the crate towers appeared, their blasters already raised. And at their head —

Sabine swallowed, looking around wildly for an escape route as Ezra went dead still. 

The Inquisitor snarled and lit his lightsaber, his wide white eyes narrowing as they spotted Ezra. “You,” he growled, before continuing louder as he charged forward. “Don’t let the children escape!”

Kanan leapt into action. Pulling out his blaster, he squeezed off a barrage of shots, forcing the Inquisitor to slow down to block them. Several squeezed past him regardless, hitting a few of the roundheads and making the fall with shouts and screams of pain.

“Specter 5, get yourself and Specter 6 out of here!” he commanded. Beside him, Hera had also pulled out her blaster and was focusing on taking down the roundheads appearing at the top of the stacks. “We’ll meet up again at Specter Home!”

Sabine grabbed Ezra’s wrist, trying to pull him along as he kept just standing there, his eyes wide. Underneath her fingers, she could feel him trembling, and she shook him to try and knock him clear of his shock.

It worked, but not in the way she wanted. He lurched forward, his mouth opening. “No, Kan — !”

She just barely got her hand over Ezra’s mouth in time. “They can handle themselves!” she shouted in his ear. “The Inquisitor’s after you! We have to go!”

Punctuating her statement, the Inquisitor roared and brought his lightsaber crashing down on the ground where Kanan had just been standing. 

“Specter 6, we’ll be right behind you, but you have to go!” Hera shouted, her lekku swinging around her head as she continued to shoot.

Ezra’s face screwed up, but Sabine knew an order when she heard one. Gripping his arm tightly with both arms, she hauled him away with all of her strength so that he was forced to run along with her.

Blaster shots ringing in her ears, she dragged Ezra along through the shadowy corridors of the warehouse. She didn’t want to leave Kanan and Hera behind any more than he did, but forcing them to defend the two of them along with themselves in close quarters like this was a recipe for getting all of them caught. 

Case in point, the pair of roundheads that suddenly darted out in front of her. If they’d stayed, they would have been surrounded. Now, though, she could pull out her blaster and take the both of them out.

She proceeded to do just so, pulling the weapon from her belt and squeezing off two shots that hit home. The soldiers crumpled like puppets with their strings cut, and the two of them ran on.

Outside, there was shouting. Underneath her feet, she could feel the vibrations of some Imperial vehicle. They couldn’t go out the front door. Her eyes cast about for another exit — there had to be another exit —

There! Set into the wall, a forgotten fire exit! Their exit!

Slamming into it, it opened with a screech that was soon echoed by an alarm whose existence surprised Sabine. She would have thought that it would have stopped working from lack of upkeep, but apparently not. 

She could hear footsteps thundering towards them. They had to keep moving.

Running through the alleyways and narrow streets of the Old City, Sabine tried to remember where the exits back to the surface were. She knew this, had known it like the back of her hand, but now while they were running the information kept refusing to come up. With none of the lights or colours that she had known before, it was like her brain was giving her nothing but error messages.

Behind them, she heard a shout. Risking a glance behind her, she spat out a curse. 

Dancing through the light and shadow, the unmistakable gleam of an ISB Agent’s armour was heading towards them, fast. Snapping her head back around, she forced herself to calm down and think. She knew these streets, not them. She knew a way out —

There. She recognized that building; she and Ketsu had bought spiced dumplings from a vendor outside of it. Turning, she darted down the alleyway beside it, dragging Ezra behind her. 

“Wait!” The voice of the ISB agent echoed through the air behind her. Sabine just tucked her head down. “Ezra Bridger, wait!”

Behind her, Ezra stumbled. The sudden weight made Sabine stumble as well, nearly falling over entirely. 

It was just enough to give the ISB agent time to catch up to them. 

By the time Sabine steadied herself, it was too late. With the familiar noise of blasters being cocked ringing in her ears, she looked up just in time to see the agent and his men coming to a stop a few feet away from them. The roundheads raised their rifles, clearly ready to shoot, but the agent raised his hand to stop them. “Ezra Bridger,” the agent repeated. “Please, it’s alright. There’s no need to run.”

Sabine snorted before she could stop herself. From the way Ezra’s fingers were digging into her wrist, it didn’t seem like he agreed. Squeezing back, she took a step forward and in front of the younger boy, shielding him as best as she could as she tried to think. Distantly, she noted that the agent’s eyes had widened as she stepped closer to the light, but when he didn’t do anything else sh pushed it to the back of her mind.

How to get out of this? “Really? There’s no need to run? I suppose we’re just imagining those blaster rifles pointed at us right now, then.”

The agent, his eyes still wide, made a sharp noise and glared over his shoulder at his soldiers. Slowly, and clearly reluctantly, they let their muzzles waver, drifting down to the ground or up to the sky. Satisfied, the agent then turned back to them. “Sabine Wren, I presume?” He took a step forward and shook his head. “Another lost child. I admit, I didn’t imagine that I’d find another one of you here, but I am not complaining.”

“Lost child?” Sabine flicked her eyes up in a way that she prayed would be taken as her rolling her eyes; in reality, she was trying to spot if there were any more roundheads that she’d missed. “I’m not a little kid, Agent. Don’t insult me.”

The agent’s lips thinned. “It’s Agent Kallus,” he said stiffly, before letting out a sigh. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Considering how young you were when the Rebellion took you, it only makes sense that you consider it your own decision.” He took another step closer. Sabine backed up, and he stopped.

“Wow,” Sabine said sarcastically, ignoring the way her arm was starting to hurt from Ezra’s grip. “I literally just asked you to not treat me like a child, and you’re continuing. Really wanting to make me listen, here.”

Agent Kallus’ eyes narrowed. Craning his head, he tried to look around her. Sabine supposed that she had been dismissed as a lost cause. “Ezra Bridger,” he said. “I don’t suppose that you would be more open to listening?”

Around her wrist, Ezra’s hand squeezed even tighter. “I remember you,” he said quietly. “You were on Lothal.”

Sabine looked behind her sharply. “What?”

Turning her head back, she just saw a look of satisfaction passing over Kallus’ face. “Yes,” he said soothingly — like that was something that Ezra would ever find soothing, she’d heard his story — “yes, I was there. I’m glad that you remember me.”

“I’m not,” Ezra replied.

Kallus’ head jerked back like he’d been slapped. Before he could say anything else, though, Sabine’s comm crackled.

“Specter 5, come in,” came the urgent voice of Kanan.

The Imperials were frozen, their heads having turned to look for the voice, and Sabine took her chance.

Plunging her hand into her satchel, she pulled out a smoke bomb. A tap of her thumb, and it began to beep, and she threw it with all of her strength at the group in front of her. 

“Run!”

“Don’t let it hit you!”

“It’s a bo —”

The smoke bomb exploded as the roundheads scattered, shoving each other in their mad attempt to get away. It filled the air with a thick, stinking grey smoke, and Sabine took that as their chance.

Whipping around, she started running again. This time, at least, she wasn’t dragging Ezra — he was running almost faster than her.

Catching up with him, she fumbled out her comm. “Specter 5 here! What’s the problem?”

“The way we came in is blocked,” Kanan warned. The relieved tone in his voice was at odds with his words. “Do you have another way out of here?”

“I came down here plenty of times while I was a cadet, I’m fine,” Sabine reassured him. “What about you and Specter 2?”

“Don’t worry about us, we’ve already found a way out.”

Behind them, Sabine could hear the shouts and thumping of the Imperials still after them. 

Up ahead, there was a break in the buildings though. She could see it now, the familiar sight of the pit-spanning Bridge of Fire. Arcing over the crevasse that lead into the ancient Undercity, it lead to a part of the Old City that had been underpopulated even when Sabine had been in the Academy. That had made it the perfect place for her and Ketsu to sneak in and out. 

First, though, they had to make it over the bridge. 

“Alright, we’ll meet you back at Specter Home,” Sabine said as they reached the bridge and began to cross it. The shouts of the Imperials and the sounds of their footsteps had gotten louder; loud enough that they had clearly followed them. Gritting her teeth, she urged her legs to move faster; Ezra was pulling ahead of her thanks to what she assumed was some sort of Force thing.

As they hurtled along the bridge the metal groaned. Despite its fancy name, the Bridge of Fire had never really been noted for its excellent construction. After centuries of neglect, though, it seemed to be held together more by rust than any actual bolts. As they ran across it, Sabine could have sworn that it felt like it was bouncing underneath her feet, letting out little warning groans that it couldn’t take much more.

And of course, that was when the soldiers opened fire.

It was like watching a holo in slow motion. Ezra ahead of her, almost halfway across. Blaster shots whizzing past them, hitting the metal and leaving hot, scorched marks behind. And then the metal screaming underneath Sabine’s feet as the world tilted.

Ezra was screaming. The agent was screaming. Distantly Sabine realized that she was screaming as well, her comm falling from her hand and being shattered by a lucky bolt.

But the world kept tilting. Her boots were no longer on the bridge. Rust flakes were spinning in the air. Looking down below, she saw darkness. Looking above, she saw Ezra, falling and reaching for her.

She reached back, her fingers brushing Ezra’s.

It wasn’t enough to save her.

She fell, with screams echoing in her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry this is a bit late, I was out with my sister seeing a play. Hopefully, the fact that I got this version of the story moving a little faster will make up for that. As always, let me know what you think in the comments!


	5. But Not Alone

Ezra didn’t like to think about the Academy. He didn’t like to think about everything that had been done to him, or what he ‘learned’ there. But right now, as he and Sabine were falling into the inky black of the pit beneath them, the rusted remains of the bridge spinning around them, he was glad for one lesson.

How to slow a fall.

As they fell, he could hear the shouts from above them. Sabine wasn’t screaming anymore; she wasn’t making a sound, her eyes wide as she looked down at him. She seemed to be in shock that the bridge had given out underneath them.

He and Sabine were still holding hands though, thankfully. Her nails were digging through the cloth of his jumpsuit and into his skin. It made it easy for him to pull her close enough that he could wrap his arms around her.

Around them, the light was falling away. The pieces of the bridge were falling away as well, swallowed up by the darkness. Sabine was hugging him back.

Ezra breathed, and _yanked_  on the Force, wrapping it around them like a blanket and spreading it out above them like a parachute. Slow, slow, he thought to himself as the twisted and turned. Looking up, he could see the lights from above rapidly receding.

Slow, slow. The wind, which had been plastering his jumpsuit tight to his body, began to lessen. Sabine had a hand on the back of his neck and her nails were now digging into his skin. 

Stars, how had this happened? He thought that this was supposed to be a milk run — an easy mission where he could learn the ropes. Mandalore was subdued, everyone knew that. Security was supposed to be light.

But it had turned out to be a trap. Force, Ezra had thought he had felt something funny coming from their contact but he had thought that that was due to the whole hand-off thing and he hadn’t said anything —

And now here they all were. Him and Sabine falling into a pit, possibly to their deaths. Kanan and Hera running for their lives from an Inquisitor —

Why had there been an Inquisitor? Why had it been the Fifth Brother?! Had they suspected that he would be there —

His stomach gave a flip that had nothing to do with the fall. No, no they couldn’t have known that he was going to be here!

Slow, slow. The light from above was fading. They were still falling, and Ezra hadn’t hit anything. How deep did this hole go? He’d never had to keep this up for so long before — 

_SLAM_

A scream that quickly ended in a strangled gasp burst from Ezra’s lips as the two of them slammed into something hard. There wasn’t enough light to see what it was, but from how it groaned and tilted, the cold from its surface seeping into his back and head, he would have bet that it was another bridge like the one they had been crossing. His head spinning, he could hear Sabine wheezing as they began to slide down once more. He scrabbled uselessly at what felt like rusted durasteel, feeling flakes of it get caught underneath his fingernails.

And then, again, they were falling.

This time, at least, it wasn’t for quite as long. Long enough for his stomach to lurch, certainly, but it was only a few seconds before he and Sabine smacked painfully into another hard surface. Still gasping for air, Ezra couldn’t scream as he hit his back again but he did manage to get out a few choked squeaks. Wheezing, his head doing somersaults, he tried to focus on catching his breath again. 

It wasn’t like there was really anything for him to visually focus on, after all. A tiny bit of light seemed to be reaching down here, but it was only enough for Ezra to just make out a few darker shapes in the shadows surrounding them. 

“…Ow,” Sabine moaned from a few feet away. “Ezra, are you okay?”

Managing to suck just a little more air into his lungs, Ezra let out a groan before answering verbally. “Define ‘okay’.”

Sabine giggled, a hysterical edge to the sound, and then whimpered. 

Concern bubbled up in Ezra’s mind. “Sabine? How about you?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, her voice tight. “Just - kind of a hard landing. Don’t think anything’s broken though.” In the darkness, he could hear her shifting, metal and cloth dragging against durasteel. Probably trying to sit up. “I’m definitely going to be sore tomorrow though.”

Rolling over was an effort that left him aching and forced a grunt from his lip. “Yeah, I don’t think that my soreness is going to wait that long,” he joked weakly.

Sabine made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Give me a minute,” she said. “I think I have — wait —” There was the noise of someone going through their pockets and trying to find something. “There!”

A white light, so pale it was almost blue, flickered on. Ezra hissed and shut his eyes at the abrupt illumination, sharp pains shooting from his eyeballs into his head. 

“Sorry!” Sabine said hastily, covering the light partially with her hand. 

“It’s okay,” Ezra replied, rubbing at his eyes and slowly sitting up. “Just wasn’t expecting it.” Taking his hands away, he blinked rapidly, a kaleidoscope of colour swimming in his vision. “What is that, anyways?”

“It’s an old helmet-light I stripped out; I put it on a bending clip, it’s really handy to have when you’re looking into nooks and crannies.” She huffed another small laugh. “I’d forgotten that I had it in my bag. Lucky us, huh?”

Sabine had been slowly removing her hand as she spoke, letting a little light creep through her fingers at a time until both of their eyes were adjusted to it. “Yeah,” Ezra agreed now that his eyes weren’t hurting, “lucky us.”

With the little light, he could now see their surroundings with more detail than before. Where there had only been slightly darker shadows, he could now see that the two of them had first hit a walkway that had collapsed underneath them, spilling them out onto what looked to be some sort of decorative plaza. At least, he thought the weird wide cylinders dotting it in straight lines looked like fountains or plantholders or something. Struggling to his feet, he clenched his jaw as he felt something in his prosthetic give a twinge, the place where the metal met his flesh feeling strangely numb. He staggered over to one of the odd shapes and, leaning against the edge, looked in. 

It was empty, but at the bottom he could see what looked like the opening to pipes. A fountain then, the water long since evaporated. 

“By the way,” Sabine said quietly, “thanks. For slowing down our fall.” Her light was flicking along the walls of the buildings surrounding the platform, letting them both see the intricate carvings and faded paintings that covered them.

Ezra looked back at her over his shoulder, wincing at how the movement made his neck ache. She’d gotten up as well, now, and was slowly walking, her face tight with pain. “I didn’t exactly stick the landing, though.”

“Better just some sore muscles than being flatcaked on a walkway,” she said, sounding distracted. “Stars, how far down did we fall?” she muttered.

Looking up, his neck and head protesting, Ezra couldn’t say. He couldn’t even see the opening that they’d fallen through, just a twinkling little light that resembled a star more than the chasm he’d seen as they ran. His mouth suddenly felt very dry as he remembered the strain of slowing them down for so long. “Really far, I think.”

Really, really far. Sabine had not been wrong in saying that they could have ended up flatcaking on that walkway. 

So far that Ezra wasn’t able to figure out how they were going to get back up.

A warm hand on his shoulder made him jump. “Hey,” Sabine said quietly, having staggered over to him silently at some point while he was looking up, “I know this is scary, but keep focused. My comm got destroyed on the way down. Did you bring one?”

Her hand on his shoulder was almost painfully tight, and Ezra realized that she must have figured out the same thing as he had. Straightening, he patted down his pockets and tried to remember if he had packed one. Checking a pocket on his thigh, he felt something smooth and metallic. “I think so — oh.”

Pulling the little piece of metal out of his pocket, his heart fell. He had, as it turned out, packed a comm. Unfortunately, he’d packed it in a place that he must have landed on particularly hard, because the item was nearly bent in half. Shaking it a little, the top part wobbled, revealing wires.

In the pale light of the helmet light, Sabine was biting her lip. “Alright,” she said after a moment in a very tight voice, “maybe you can use the Force?”

“I — I’m not sure if I can this far away,” Ezra said dazedly, still staring at the smashed comm. How had he not felt that? “Not with any detail. If I try anything more —” At most, he’d be able to send the sensation that they were okay, but any attempt to actually include words — 

Sabine squeezed his shoulder a little tighter. “Ezra,” she said, “right now, we just need to get in contact with him and Hera. I think that he’d be okay with you hurting him a little if it meant that we were okay.”

“I —” Ezra stopped. Swallowed. Shook his head and shoved the broken device back into his pocket, oddly reluctant to just let it drop to the ground like trash. “Sorry, you’re right. I just —” He shook his head again and closed his eyes, concentrating.

He’d done this a thousand times in the Academy. Reaching to people’s minds, speaking to them (hurting them) — it wasn’t hard for him. He just had to reach out through the Force and grab a hold of the shining rope that was his bond with Kanan and pull himself along it to get closer. At the Academy, he hadn’t had something as solid and strong as the rope to pull himself into someone’s mind. He’d had to make do with little strings of emotions that radiated from everyone, and those had seemed to snap and disconnect like strands of hair until he got angry and scared enough to grab a bunch of them and just yank. 

Breathing in deep through his nose, he let the air out through his nose. Alright. He just had to do this slowly. Carefully. Gently. He didn’t need to be angry or scared for this. He just had to keep calm, like Kanan had talked about. Just follow it, not yank on it.

Slowly, carefully, Ezra reached out towards the golden rope. Placing one mental hand on it, he pulled —

And came to a stop, because the rope — the rope wasn’t the long and golden length it usually was, it was short and had stopped suddenly in the darkness —

No. Not the darkness. It had stopped at the silhouette of a person.

A person that was now looking at him curiously — past him, towards the only other person there with Ezra — 

His eyes snapped open and he staggered back, like the silhouette was something he could physically get away from.

“Ezra?” Sabine sounded alarmed. Swinging the light around so that it was shining in his face, she grabbed the front of his jumpsuit to steady him. “Ezra, what is it? Is Kanan okay?”

Ezra just wheezed. What had that been? What had been looking back at him? “I — I don’t know, I was going along our bond and then suddenly — suddenly something was looking at me —”

Sabine froze. “Something was looking back at you?” Her voice was tight with worry. “Could it be that Inquisitor?”

“I, no —” Ezra began to say before stopping. Could it be? He’d never seen the Fifth Brother doing much with the Force that didn’t involve his physical abilities, but the Academy hadn’t actually taught him all that much, being a slave-breaking camp, and he was only just starting out properly learning how to be a Jedi…

He turned and looked at her. “I — I don’t know. Maybe?”

Sabine pressed her lips together tightly, and for a long, painful moment the two of them just looked at each other. Both of them knew what Inquisitors were capable of. Both of them had been victimized by one.

Sabine broke their gaze first. “We need to start moving,” she said. “I think I know where we are, and if I’m right, we should be able to find a way back up.” She craned her neck, seeming to be searching for something. 

“Where are we, then?” Ezra asked. She didn’t answer, turning away, her head turning from side to side as she flicked. Reaching out, he gripped her arm. “Sabine? Where are we?”

She paused as he grabbed her and turned back. Her expression was odd; Ezra couldn’t tell if she was worried, excited, or just focused. “We’re in the original Sundari, from before the Republic. What we call today the Undercity.”

* * *

Static.

Kanan stared down at the commlink held in his shaking hand and felt despair sink its teeth into his heart. Sabine and Ezra, screaming -

Someone was breathing heavily, like they were about to scream. Distantly, he realized that it was him.

Hera’s fingers were digging into his arm. “Kanan —” she began.

“We should have refused,” Kanan said. “We should have refused this mission, we knew it was a bad idea —”

“We couldn’t have known that it was going to be a trap,” Hera said steadily, “all of the codes were correct. Everything said that this was just going to be the milk run it looked like.”

Kanan squeezed the comm in his hand until its edges were digging into his palms. With his free hand, he dug his fingers into his hair. Crouched in a ventilation shaft with Hera, the fans further down humming loudly as the spun, he wanted to scream. Horrible half-formed visions of what the kids would be going through now that they were caught ran through his head like ships through hyperspace - their small forms crumpled on the dark streets down here, in an Imperial cell as they waited to be tortured for information that they didn’t have -

“Kanan -” 

Kanan broke and punched the wall, not caring that the skin over his knuckles was splitting.

“Kanan!” Hera shouted, grabbing his arm. “Stop! Hurting yourself won’t solve anything!”

“I should have put my foot down! They should have been with the ship!”

“We were asked specifically for this mission because Sabine is Mandalorian!” Hera reminded him. Taking a hand off of his arm, she grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at her. “This should have been the perfect mission to introduce Ezra to our work. It was just bad luck —”

Kanan pulled his arm from her grip and punched the wall again. The inside of his glove felt damp.

“We should have known!” he snapped, his stomach tight with guilt. “We should have guessed — this planet is crawling with Imperials, we should have guessed that it was too good to be true, we should have never brought them with us!”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” 

The shock of hearing Hera shout jarred Kanan out of the black spiral of self-blame that he had started to fall down. “Hera?”

Looking at her, he abruptly realized that her eyes were suspiciously shiny and she was blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling. “I knew that it had only been six months since the raid,” she said, her voice cracking. “I _knew_  that Mandalore is one of the most locked-down planets in the galaxy, I _knew_ that Sabine and Ezra are children, and I still brought them along.”

“Hera, no,” Kanan said, uncomfortably aware of how his previous words could be taken as blaming her. “We both missed it. We both took Fulcrum at their word that things would be fine and didn’t research it.” Reaching over, he wrapped his arms around her. “This isn’t your fault, it’s the Imperials’ fault.”

“We put them in this situation,” Hera said, her face buried into his chest. “We decided that the risk was worth it.”

Kanan squeezed her tighter. “We did,” he said, “and now they’re paying the price.” He hadn’t been able to see what had happened, but from the shouting and screams before the sudden silence, he could guess. That Imperial that had been talking was clearly interested in taking them into custody…

“They’re still alive,” he said. He could feel that his bond with Ezra was still there; there had been nothing like that awful, twisting snap that he had felt when Master Billaba had died. “Most likely they’re being taken into Imperial Custody. We’ve done jailbreaks before, we can do them again.”

Hera pulled her face away from his chest and looked up at him, breathing deeply. Her eyelashes fluttered as she closed her wet eyes. When she opened them again, the despair that he’d seen in them was gone, replaced with the laser-focus and determination that he was used to. “You’re right,” she said, sniffing and wiping the tears from her cheeks with slender fingers. “You’re right,” she repeated. “They’re still alive. So long as they are, there’s still hope that we can get them back.”

Pulling her in again, Kanan squeezed her in a tight hug and rested his head on top of hers. “There’s still hope,” he echoed. “We just need a plan. That agent — with what he said, they’re probably going to be hidden.”

“Meaning that the first thing we need to do is figure out where they could be being kept,” Hera agreed, not raising her head from his chest. “Security is high thanks to the celebration, but it is a celebration. People will be drinking, including the Imperials.”

Kanan shifted, pulling away a little so that he could look at her. “Your suggesting we roll an Imp? A Nal Hutta run?” he said, referring to one of their many standard plans. He began to think about their supplies. “I’m not sure if I still have those pants, though.”

Hera’s lekku twitched thoughtfully. “We can check when we get back to the Ghost,” she said. “We’ll also need to figure out where the Imperials drink here.”

“And how we’re going to extract them,” Kanan agreed. “Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, we should get back to the Ghost. Zeb and Chopper are going to have to know about this too.”

Hera cursed and looked down. “Zeb and Chopper — Gods, I didn’t even think about them. How are we going to explain this to them?”

“With honesty,” Kanan replied, though a pang was going through him as well at the thought of the last two crew members. Zeb loved the kids; when Kanan was having his troubles, he’d been the one to step up to the plate with Ezra. And when Sabine had first come on board, he’d been the one to get through to her that dying in a suicidal attack was not the way to handle her guilt about surviving the Purges. As for Chopper, who had pretty much adopted the kids as his stupid squishy meat siblings…well, Kanan saw a lot of zaps from Chopper’s shockprod in his future. “We fell down on our job of keeping Ezra and Sabine safe. But they’ll know what the stakes are.” 

Seeing the still-worried look on her face, he took her hand in his, and caught her gaze. “We’ll get them back,” he promised in a soft voice. “The Imperials my have hurt them before, but they’re not alone now. They know that we’ll be coming for them.”

Hera squeezed his hand and pressed her forehead against his. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

* * *

Alexsandr ignored the soldiers around him, staring into the inky black pit where the children that he had tried to save had fallen just a half-hour ago and feeling the helpless roiling rage bubble away in his stomach.

So close. He had been so close to one of the cadets that he had been trying to track down and save — and he had been with yet another kidnapping victim of the Rebellion! They had been right there, within reach, and now they were gone.

He wanted to scream, to shout, to throw the soldiers whose shots had weakened and collapsed the bridge into the same pit the children had fallen into. 

But he couldn’t. Not right now, at least. Not when Viceroy Saxon was on his way thanks to the amount of destruction that the rebels had caused during their escape.

That was just the final kick in the teeth, too. All of this work, and they hadn’t managed to capture a single rebel.

Behind him, the chatter of the soldiers suddenly quieted. Tearing his eyes away from the darkness, Alexsandr narrowed them when he saw what had silenced them. 

The Fifth Brother. The tall alien moved through the crowd of soldiers with a plodding certainty that they would part around him, his white eyes staring straight ahead. 

Alexsandr hadn’t wanted him to join this raid. He’d been planning it for weeks, and had known that throwing in another factor at the last minute had been a bad idea. But one didn’t disobey the Grand Inquisitor lightly — or really at all. So he had accepted the Fifth Brother and tried to slot him in where Alexsandr had thought he could do some good.   
Hah! Do some good — Inquisitors were supposed to excel at capturing rebels, and this Fifth Brother hadn’t even managed that!

But Alexsandr didn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, he turned his head back to the inky blackness and prayed that the damned alien wouldn’t try and strike up a conversation.

No such luck. 

“You followed the children.” The big alien’s voice buzzed slightly as he spoke, suggesting some vocal surgeries in his past. “But you did not manage to capture them.”

Alexsandr ground his teeth together. “And you followed the adults, and also failed to capture them,” he pointed out. 

The Fifth Brother was silent at that, but the air thickened with tension. 

Alexsandr refused to be intimidated. Clenching his gloved hands, he kept his eyes on the pit. I should have refused you, he thought bitterly. Trying to insert you messed up all of the designs and plans that I had to keep the net together. 

Before he could go too far down that road of thought, though, he heard a low roar coming up from behind them. Turning around, he at first didn’t see anything. Then, as the roar got louder, he looked up.

Of course, he thought in irritation. Of course the Mandalorians would use their jetpacks to get here.

The white and red armour of the supercommandos was bright in the gloom of the Old City, and made brighter by the flames coming out of their chosen transportation.

Alexsandr could recognize the bulky form of the Viceroy at the front of the small V-formation, but the smaller, slimmer forms behind him were mysteries to him. 

Well, that was a mystery for another time, Alexsandr thought as he turned and strode towards the empty bit of street that they were landing in. Right now, he had a mess to explain. “Viceroy Saxon.”

“Agent Kallus,” Saxon replied, taking his helmet off. “I’ve heard that things haven’t gone well for you.”

Alexsandr clenched his jaw. “Unfortunately, things like that happen when you add another factor to a plan at the last minute,” he snapped heatedly. “This Inquisitor tore a hole through the lines of my men in his pursuit of the rebels, allowing them to get away!”

“That is your problem, Agent,” Saxon said coolly, cocking his head to one side. “Not mine. And neither is it the reason for me calling.”

Alexsandr had leaned forward while speaking, but straightened at the Viceroy’s words. “I beg your pardon?”

Saxon scratched casually at his chin. “I’m afraid that I came down here to inform you that we need you to return the soldiers that were lent to you,” he said. “They’re needed now for another assignment.”

“That is a pity.”

Alexsandr (and thankfully, Saxon) jumped at the sudden words of the Fifth Brother, who had apparently decided to stop staring into the pit that the children had fallen into. 

“What?” Saxon asked, sounding a little ruffled at the Inquisitor’s sudden interjection. 

“Agent Kallus,” the Fifth Brother said, ignoring the Viceroy, “the children are still alive.”

Alexsandr stiffened, now also ignoring the Viceroy’s irritated repetition of _What?_ “Alive — but how? That fall —”

“Is nothing to a Force user,” the Fifth Brother said. “No doubt he slowed his and the girl’s fall to the point that it was not fatal.”

“What?” This time, the Viceroy’s tone was sharp. Alexsandr turned to him and saw that his brows were drawn together in a glare. “My apologies, gentlemen, but if you wouldn’t mind explaining what you’re talking about to those of us that weren’t here…”

“My apologies,” Alexsandr said. Straightening, he tucked his hands behind his back. “When our trap was sprung — the rebels had brought two children with them to the pick-up. Two children that I recognized as known to have been kidnapped from Imperial Academies.”

One white eyebrow shot up. “The rebels brought two of the kidnapped cadets with them? The ones that every Imperial in the galaxy is looking for?”

Alexsandr shook his head. “One of them was, yes, but the other was an individual that I think would be more familiar to you.”

“More familiar to me?”

“Her hair had been dyed,” Alexsandr said, “but her face hadn’t changed that much.”

Saxon frowned, his eyes darting to the side as he thought. Then it hit him. “You saw Sabine Wren?”

Alexsandr simply nodded.

Saxon’s hand came up to cover his mouth, clearly thinking. Interestingly, though, he wasn’t the only person to react to the mention of the girl. Behind him, the two still-helmeted supercommandos had stiffened at the sound of her name.

“You’re certain it’s her?” Saxon asked, looking at him seriously. 

“She answered to the name,” Alexsandr replied. “The boy with her was Ezra Bridger, one of the missing Inquisitorial cadets. I don’t know why they were brought along on a rebel mission, but if the Fifth Brother is telling the truth then retrieving them should be our top priority.”

Saxon dropped his hand from his face and grimaced. “That might not be possible, though. As I had been saying, the soldiers under your command are needed for another mission.”

Impatient, Alexsandr took a step forward. “Viceroy, the rescue of the Inquisitorius cadets has been one of top priorities of the ISB for months, and you yourself was the one to alert us to Wren’s kidnapping. What rebel base is more important than retrieving these two children?”

“An attack on the rebel headquarters,” the Fifth Brother interjected, his voice buzzing but emotionless. “Where it is expected that more information on where the rest of the Inquisitorius cadets are being hidden.”

Alexsandr’s head snapped around as his brain came to a screeching halt. “I beg your pardon.”

The Fifth Brother turned his head towards him, his white gaze penetrating. “The main headquarters of the Rebellion has been found; that is why the soldiers are needed.” He turned back to the Viceroy. “The Grand Inquisitor will understand our need, though. He especially wants Ezra Bridger retrieved.”

Alexsandr was still stuck on the idea that the main headquarters of the Rebellion being found and him not knowing, but the Viceroy seemed to be more in the here and now.

“The Grand Inquisitor, yes,” he said, sounding reluctant, “but the Grand Admiral might be less forgiving. He’s apparently been planning this assault for some time.”

That managed to shake Alexsandr out of his stunned state. “We don’t need an entire legion,” he said, putting the matter of his knowledge of the attack to one side for now. “Only a few, to assist with tracking and bringing the children in. They seem to have been convinced that the Rebels are on their side, they might not be willing to come right away.”

“It would also slow us down less,” the Fifth Brother rumbled. 

Saxon rubbed at his chin again, looking thoughtful. “Ye-es,” he drawled, “I think I see what you mean.” Dropping his hand, he looked at them both. “Well, like I said, the Grand Admiral requires these soldiers. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you borrow some of my supercommandos for this.”

Alexsandr blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected such generosity. “My thanks. That would be most appreciated.”

“Good to hear,” Saxon said blandly, before looking over his shoulder. “Wren, Onyo,” he said to his guards, “you’re with the Agent and the Inquisitor.”

“Sir?” asked the one on the right — the male.

Saxon turned and clapped a hand on the male’s shoulder. “She’s your sister, Wren,” he said. “I’d think you’d have even more reason to make sure she gets home safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks for all of your understanding last week. Here's the new chapter for you, chock-full of tasty information and foreshadowing. As ever, let me know what you think!


	6. A Canto Bight Pick-Up

Getting up from the Old City was not an easy task. Without Sabine to guide them and forced to stay in the various ventilation and drainage tunnels to avoid Imperial patrols, it took them several hours to reach an area near to the docking bay that the Ghost was waiting in. 

The sunlight which had been so harsh when they had first stepped off of the ship had now turned a bloody red as they walked through the crowds that filled the spaceport. Holding Hera’s hand and trying to look casual, Kanan tried to put that thought out of his mind. He didn’t need to be thinking about blood at this time.

It was hard, though. He’d watched the video of Ezra’s interrogation by the Resistance after the raid on Dromund Kaas; Ezra had been recovering and getting used to his new leg, so there had been plenty of time for Kanan to seriously think about how he was going to be Ezra’s master. Ezra had let slip a few things, but a lot of what the Inquisitors had done to him had still been a mystery to him at the time. He had figured that it was probably for the best if he knew the full story of what had been done to his padawan, so that he could avoid situations that could trigger bad reactions. 

He had never come closer to falling off the wagon after watching that video. And now, Ezra was back in Imperial custody. Ezra and Sabine, the two members of their crew that had been most deeply hurt by the Empire…

“This way, dear,” Hera said quietly as she tugged on his arm. 

Dragging himself out of his thoughts, he realized that while he had been thinking he’d nearly walked into the line for customs. A few people that were clearly bored out of their minds by the slow lines had turned to look at him as he nearly careened to them. 

Kanan forced an apologetic smile onto his face. “Sorry, honey,” he said, winding his arm around Hera’s shoulders, “I was just thinking.”

Hera had also seen the people watching. She smiled up at him. “Oh?” she asked, steering him away from the crowd, “about what?”

They kept up the idle chatter as they passed through the rest of the crowds in the spaceport. There were a lot of people here for the celebrations, setting things up and bringing in the fresh foods that couldn’t be grown on the sterilized surface of the planet. 

There were also a lot of roundheads and their droids. Kanan watched them carefully out of the corners of his eyes as they passed them by, even as casual conversation continued to flow out of his mouth. He couldn’t help but remember the last time they were here, how the presence of soldiers was so omnipresent, like a weight on the back of his neck.

Sabine had been so quiet on the way to the meeting. Had she been caught up in memories of that time too?

His stomach flopped at the thought. Stars, he hoped that they reached the ship soon.

It took another ten agonizing minutes before they managed that though. Stained by the light of the setting sun, the Ghost sat peacefully in the docking bay that they’d been assigned. And there, standing on the cargo bay loading ramp, was Zeb.

Only a sharp hand gesture, more easily observed than Kanan would have liked, kept the Lasat from dashing over to them. As it was, he was nearly vibrating with tension as they walked into the ship.

“Where are Sabine and Ezra?” he demanded as soon as they hit the button to raise the ramp. He looked behind them like he expected to two to just appear out of nowhere, totally fine. “Chopper’s been trying to raise you all for hours —”

“We know,” Hera said, holding up her hands. They’d had to turn off their comms while still in the service tunnels on the way up, worried that the chimes would attract the attention of someone. “The op turned out to be a trap and we were separated.”

“Separated?!” Zeb looked thunderous. “And you just came back here —”

Hera shot Kanan a pleading look that he understood entirely. Stepping between her and Zeb, he drew the other man’s attention away from her. “There’s more to it than that, Zeb,” he said sternly. “But we can’t help them if we get caught too. We have to leave Mandalore so that we can spoof a new signature for the ship.”

“But the kids — !”

“We know!” Kanan snapped. He regretted it immediately as a multi-tool that had been left on top of a crate rattled and fell onto the ground. He hadn’t lost control like that since he was an Initiate. Squeezing his eyes shut, he lifted his hands and dug the heels of them into his face. “We know, Zeb. We kriffing heard them being captured by the Imperials, but we can’t do anything if we get arrested too! So Hera’s going to fly us out of here and then come right back with a different ship signature so that we can get them back!”

Silence met him. Pulling his hands away, Kanan looked up at Zeb, who had his ears pinned back from the shouting. “I know that they’re alive,” he said, forcing his voice to lower. “I can feel Ezra, and the Imperials spoke to them — I heard them over the comm. They’re interested in both of them.”

Zeb’s impressive brow wrinkled. “Both of them? Ezra I understand, I’ve heard some rumours about how the Inquisitors have been explaining the raid, but why would they specifically be interested in Sabine?”

“That, I don’t know,” Kanan admitted. He knew that Sabine had been relieved that they didn’t ask too closely why he’d found her that night with a blaster to her head, but right now he was regretting that more than a little. Not knowing why the Imperials were interested in her only let his brain go crazy with ‘what-ifs’, videos playing in his head of Imperial hospitality. “We can ask her later, when we get her back. But right now, we need to get off-planet.”

As if on cue, the ship rumbled beneath them, the familiar sounds of the engines coming to life rumbling through the hold. 

Zeb rubbed his forehead like he was trying to smooth out the wrinkles on it. “Alright,” he grunted. “Alright. I don’t like it, but I see the logic. Do you have a plan for when we get back?”

Kanan sighed. He could hear Hera talking in the cockpit, no doubt to the traffic control center of the Sundari’s main port. Chopper was burbling loudly, his electronic buzz indignant. Kanan didn’t doubt that he was just as upset as Zeb was with this situation.

“We have some rough ideas,” he said. He placed his hands on his hips. “We’re thinking a Nal Hutta run with some Imp, get their access codes so we can find out where the kids are being held.”

“Do you know where to find that type of Imp?” Zeb asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sundari’s a big city, there’s bound to be a lot of Imperials but not all of them will have access to the right sort of information.”

Kanan grimaced. “We’re well aware of that, thanks,” he said as the floor gave the familiar shudder that marked the jump to hyperspace. “Considering what Mandalore’s gone through at the Empire’s hands, though, I doubt that the sort we’re looking for will be at any old drinking hole though.” He rubbed at his chin, feeling the short bristly hairs of his beard rasp over his fingers. “Probably they’ll stick closer to the Duchess’ Palace,” he said, referring to the massive building that had served as the Duchess Satine’s base of government before the civil war. Kanan had glanced over a few descriptions of the city before they had arrived. There wasn’t much, thanks to the usual Mandalorian disdain for letting outsiders onto their worlds, but the Duchess had been quite open in her desire to bring Mandalore more into the galactic community. 

“The Hotel Amity has a bar that caters to Imperials.”

Kanan looked up. He hadn’t heard Hera coming, but he supposed that the dash didn’t need babysitting once they had hit hyperspace. She was standing on the balcony above them, holding an old and battered datapad. “Hotel Amity, huh? Ironic name for an Imperial hangout.”

“It’s from the Duchess’ time,” Hera said. She glanced up from the datapad. “According to to the bucket-bumper forums I’ve found for Sundari, the off-world Imperials tend to drink there — the supercommandoes have their own places, a few levels down. However —”

“— it’s the off-worlders we’ll want,” Zeb noted, some satisfaction creeping into his voice to replace the worry. “If Saxon’s anything like Fulcrum’s reports say he is, he stuffed all of his people into military roles and left the paperwork to whoever the Empire sent to him. They’re the ones that are going to have the access codes we need.”

“According to the forums, they’re particularly open to bucket-bumpers in Sundari,” Hera added, looking at the datapad again. She scrolled the screen down and raised an eyebrow. “Apparently the Mandalorians aren’t very fond of them. Can’t imagine why.”

Kanan snorted. “Alright. Guess I should break out the leather pants.”

“And me my dress,” Hera added, not looking up from the datapad. 

“What?” Kanan cocked his head. “That’s not part of a Nal Hutta run, Hera.”

“No, but it is part of a Canto Bight pick-up,” she pointed out, looking up from the pad. There was a wrinkle between her eyebrows; a sign of just how stressed she was. “Mandalore’s been human-dominated for centuries. We’re going to need a taste of the exotic if we want to actually reel someone in. And you know how my people are seen as class symbols.”

Kanan squirmed. She had a point, but he always hated treating her like that in public, and he knew that she hated acting like that as well. “What about control? Someone’s going to have to stay back —”

“Me and Chopper can handle that,” Zeb interrupted. “I don’t like it either, but she isn’t wrong about Imps. Both of you, together, only increases our chances of catching an Imp off-guard.” He shrugged ruefully, his eyes tight with worry. “Besides, I’m not the right type of exotic. It’s not like I would be much help there.”

Kanan grunted and looked down, placing his hands on his hips. The logic was sound, and he knew that look on Hera’s face. There was no stopping her in this. “Alright,” he said. “But we stick together, all right?”

“Of course,” Hera reassured him. “I don’t like the idea of letting a bunch of Imps paw at me any more than you do, love.”

Kanan smiled, and knew it looked more like a grimace. “Well, the two of us together, we’ll be in and out fast,” he joked. “Especially if we manage to find those pants.”

* * *

Fenn’s stomach was still twisting as they left the Viceroy behind and returned to the shuttle. Drumming his fingers on the armrest of his seat as they rose back up to the more populated parts of the city, the echoes of Saxon’s blunt threat bounced through his head.

How easily those words had come from the man’s mouth! How easily he had threatened the head of one of the Great Houses! It made Fenn sick that he was so secure in his power that he thought he could get away with that —

In the seat just a little away from him, the supercommando that had been assigned to escort him (not Wren; apparently the boy had been called away for some other duty) shifted in his seat. Fenn’s eyes automatically shot over to him. The man was bigger, broader across the chest than Wren had been and far less chatty. He had not made any motion to remove his helmet during the ride, either.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Fenn turned his gaze back towards the window where he had been watching the city pass by. 

Of course Saxon thought that he could get away with such things. How could he not, when the Empire had been doing exactly that for going on fifteen years now? Frustration welled up like bile in the back of his throat. 

Stars, he needed a drink. All he could hope now was that his people had had some success in their duties. 

Coming to the planet, he had had an inkling that he would be under scrutiny. He had also known that the other Heads would not be pleased with him if he started making trouble. Being separated from his people and taken to speak with Saxon right away had only emphasized the truth behind these worries. 

At the same time, being on Mandalore itself presented opportunities that he could not disregard. It was, for example, easy to refuse access to the Mandalorian Academy’s records when the requester was several planets away; it was much harder to do that when the men and women of a Great House were there right in front of you.

Yes, it was risky to show his hand in such a way; Ordo at least would have been snapping at him for making waves like that. But considering that such a show would be his sixteenth official inquiry into such things, Fenn didn’t think that it was nearly as risky as the others would make it sound. 

The ship shuddered familiarly, and Fenn realized that while he was wool-gathering they must have arrived at the lodgings the Empire had set up for his House. The supercommando, who had subsided back into stillness after that single shifting of his weight, looked up towards the ceiling. The speakers in the ship crackled a moment later, confirming his thoughts. “We have arrived at the Hotel Amity; please wait until the ramp is lowered before leaving your seat.”

A few minutes later, Fenn found himself walking down the loading ramp of the shuttle with the supercommando trailing behind him like a shadow. He hadn’t heard of the Hotel Amity before, preferring to spend his time with his people and the Protectors, and was at least partially bracing himself for finding that he had been assigned to some shack as a calculated insult by the Viceroy and the Empire.

To his surprise, he found himself in front of a fine, wealthy-looking building. Apparently one of the rare remaining buildings from before the war, the hotel was a mass of glass and winding gold metal. It reminded Fenn of before the Clone Wars, when the Duchess Kryze had still ruled, stretching above and below him with the occasional landing pad sticking out.

Behind him, the supercommando cleared his throat. Fenn turned his head to look at him.

“This floor has been rented out for you and your people,” the supercommando said flatly. “For your own safety, the Viceroy has requested that you do not wander around the city without an escort.”

Fenn clenched his jaw, resentment bubbling up. The Viceroy didn’t want him wandering around, huh? “And if I want a drink to wash the memory of that meeting away?” he asked. “Would my people be considered enough of an escort?”

The smooth, featureless helmet gave away nothing of what the man underneath was feeling. “There’s a bar in the hotel.” He didn’t answer Fenn’s other question. “If you wish to use your own people as your escort, you can, so long as you alert the hotel security as to where you are going.”

Fenn snorted and twisted his lips, understanding what was being silently said. No doubt any location he named would be checked to make sure that he was actually going there. “Of course.” He turned away and began to walk towards the doors leading into the building. “I won’t keep you from your duties then.”

The supercommando didn’t answer. Fenn could hear his footsteps, though, getting fainter as he headed back to the shuttle.

By the time he was slipping into the floor that had been rented out for him, the shuttle engines were rumbling as the ship lifted up. Squinting at the dust that was being thrown up, he closed the door behind him and quickly wiped his eyes.

“Alor Rau!”

Blinking away the last of the dust, Fenn looked up at his name and gave the first real smile he’d felt that day as he saw who was heading towards him. “Fokkay, Mahhae, Kandal,” he said, spreading out his arms in welcome. “Any luck?”

“Never mind that, alor,” Mahhae said, pushing ahead of the other two. “Are you alright? The Viceroy didn’t hurt you?”

Fenn could feel his smile fade, but he tried to keep it on for a little bit longer. “I’m fine, he just wanted to talk.” She was patting him down like she was trying to feel for tender spots and he caught her hands. “I’ll tell you more later. More importantly, how did your visit to the Imperial Academy go? Were you able to access the documents?”

The looks of relief and joy that had been covering their faces abruptly slid away. Fenn’s stomach did a flip as the three of them traded looks. “Alor…”

Fenn stepped away from Mahhae, letting her hands drop from his. “Were you able to access the documents?”

Mahhae touched his arm. “Alor,” she said quietly when he turned back to her, “we tried —”

His throat tightened. Looking at the others again, he saw similar expressions. Discomfort mixed with genuine sadness and shame. 

They hadn’t been able to access the database. They hadn’t been able to finally find out what had happened to Aji.

Fenn clenched his jaw and forced himself to swallow back the sudden surge of anger. “What was their excuse this time?”

The three of them traded looks. Abruptly, Fenn realized that Kandal was holding a datapad and fiddling with its corners.

“Kandal,” Fenn said, squeezing his hands into fists and then forcing them to relax, “what did they say?”

Kandal looked down at his feet. “I…”

“Kandal.”

The other man shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “We went in, alor, but they still wouldn’t give us access. They said…” He hesitated. “They said that the records were sealed, anyways.”

Fenn’s ears began to ring. “Saxon sealed them?”

When Kandal didn’t reply, Fokkay stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Alor,” they said quietly and with a terrible urgency, “alor, it wasn’t Saxon that sealed the records. It was the Committee of Public Safety.”

Ice water trickled down Fenn’s spine. “The Committee of Public Safety?” The ruling council of the Empire, no matter what the Senate claimed? “You’re certain that that’s what they said?”

Kandal shifted again, holding out the datapad. “We triple-checked, alor. It’s their seal alright.”

Fenn snatched the pad from his hand and looked at it himself. There, in stark black against the greenish-yellow background of the datapad, was the Imperial Crest, surrounded by the Committee’s motto of _Security through Solidarity_. 

“Why?” he managed to croak out after a long moment where it felt like his tongue was numb. “Why in the stars would the Committee seal Aji’s records?”

“We don’t know,” Mahhae said quietly. “The bureaucrats weren’t exactly encouraging us to stick around and ask further, either.”

Fenn wouldn’t be quite sure what it was, later. Normally he had enough control over himself to keep from doing such things — his mother, the previous head of his House, had always emphasized that the first person to get angry would be the person that lost the fight. Maybe it was Saxon’s threat, still stewing in the back of his mind. Maybe it was the knowledge that if it went up all the way to the Committee there was no way he would ever find out what happened to his nephew. For whatever reason, rather than giving back the datapad, he instead turned and hurled it at the wall while letting loose a blistering torrent of curses.

“— _slime-sucking cowardly piece of shit!_ ” he snarled as the datapad sparked, its screen dying as it clattered to the floor. “Stringing me along and laughing —”

Distantly, he was aware that the others were touching him, trying to hold him back from marching right back out the door that he had entered the room with. Part of him appreciated that, knowing full well that if he tried to get at Saxon now he’d only end up getting himself killed. The larger part of him, however, tried to throw them off.

“Let me go!” he snapped, barely recognizing his own voice. “Let me go and beat the stars-damned information out of him, his karking supercommandos can’t karking stop me —”

“Alor! Fenn!” Kandal shouted, his fingers digging into Fenn’s upper arms, “Fenn, stop! You’re just going to get yourself killed!”

“I don’t care!” Fenn roared. Memories were swirling in his head, of the little boy that had been placed in his arms as the clan medics looked down at him sorrowfully, gently speaking of how his parents had saved the boy by covering him with their own bodies; memories of his nephew growing up, learning how to shoot and fight and fly, of him sitting on the edge of Fenn’s bed with tears in his eyes and pleas on his lips to not _let them take me, Uncle Fenn_  — 

He ducked his head, his eyes burning, and sagged in their arms as the strength abruptly faded from his limbs. “I’ve failed Aji, I don’t — I don’t —”

“Fenn,” Fokkay said quietly, loosening their grip just enough to wrap their arms around his middle. “Fenn, you didn’t fail Aji.”

The tears were now spilling down his face without his permission. Fenn clutched at Fokkay’s hands, digging his nails into the other warrior’s skin and not knowing if it was a plea for them to let go or not. “He begged me,” he said, his voice breaking. “He begged me not to let them take him, and I just stood by.”

“What could you have done to stop them?” Mahhae asked. “Saxon and his cronies didn’t give you a choice, and after the Fifth Uprising and the Grand Inquisitor no one was about to refuse him. You’re not the only Head to send a child to the Imperial Academy.”

Fenn squeezed his eyes shut. He knew it was the truth in his head, but in his heart…

He was being guided away from the doors now, away from the cracked and sparking datapad. Fokkay shifted so that they were now at his side, guiding him down onto a hard grey couch. Kandal had moved his arms so that now they were around his shoulders in a hug, and Mahhae was now behind the couch, stroking his hair. 

“All I want is to know what happened to him,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “All I want is some bones, something to bury, to know whether or not I should keep hoping. That’s all I want, and Saxon won’t even give me that —” His voice cracked and he ducked his head. 

And now that the Committee was involved, he couldn’t even go over the man’s head. When the Committee for Public Safety sealed a set of records, there was no re-opening them. He would never know what had happened to his nephew now; he would never have a body to bury. All he would have was the few holos he’d saved over the years of happier times, reminders of everything he had failed to protect. 

Not even his anger could keep the tears at bay now. Gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut, he covered his face and focused on at least keeping the sobs in his chest from getting out. He could still feel Mahhae’s hand in his hair, and the comforting warmth of Kandal and Fokkay on either side of him. 

“Don’t think about that,” Kandal murmured. “Don’t let yourself dwell on it.”

His voice was so soothing, but Fenn couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself forget this —

Someone knocked at the suite’s door. Breathing heavily, Fenn listened to Fokkay get up from beside him and go to answer the door. He struggled to get himself under control; he didn’t need to allow everyone on this damned planet see the mess he was.

Whoever was at the door didn’t speak loud enough for Fenn to hear them clearly; Fokkay matched their volume as well, meaning that until the door shut and Fokkay came back over to them, he had no idea what the person had been at the door for. 

After a minute of conversation, the sound of the door hissing closed reached his ears. Fenn felt a little less like he was about to collapse entirely. Wiping at his face, he managed to lift his head enough to look Fokkay in the eye as they sat back down beside them. “What was that all about then?” he asked in a rough voice.

“One of Shysa’s people,” Fokkay said quietly, peering at him intently. “It was an invitation to drinks tonight with him and the rest of the Heads.”

Fenn wanted to be irritated at Fokkay’s scrutiny, but couldn’t. He was a mess. However…

“I should probably go,” he muttered. “No doubt they heard that Saxon dragged me aside and want to know what he asked.”

“About that,” Kandal said slowly. “Alor, did he —”

“No,” Fenn said, understanding the question. “Just asked about — maps, of all things.” He rubbed at his forehead. “Of the Undercity.”

“What? Why?” 

“I’m not exactly a person he’d confide in,” Fenn noted dryly. “It doesn’t matter in any case. I’ll have to call back home, get them to send me them.”

Mahhae had never stopped petting his hair at any point during this. Now, she did. “The others will want to know of this,” she pointed out. “Saxon isn’t known for his interest in history.”

Fenn looked up at her and nodded. “I will tell them,” he promised. “We’ve already been invited here, after all. More odd moves deserve discussion.”

And that was that. After finding out that whatever had happened to his nephew went all the way to the top of the Empire - he'd be going down to a bar to meet with the other Heads of the Great Houses, like nothing had happened at all.

Hopefully, he'd at least be able to get a decent drink.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, back on the usual schedule! Credit to Cognomen on Discord for coming up with the name bucket-bumpers for Imperial groupies.
> 
> A whole lotta talking in this chapter, but it's all necessary for setting things up. Let me know what you thought in the comments!


	7. Tensions Rising and Falling

Even with the Viceroy’s approval, it took longer than Alexsandr liked to organize their little group. 

The pit that Bridger and Wren had fallen into was apparently far more than a pit. The supercommando called Onyo had spoken to him as they gathered the required materials for their rescue attempt, informing him that the area that they were going into was known as the Undercity. According to her, the area was far larger than just a single pit; no, it was truly another ‘city’ that they were heading into, large and barely maintained outside of the enormous pillars that the Old and New City of Sundari rested on. Completely covered over by the built-up Old and New City, simply grabbing a shuttle and going down there was not an option. With the amount of ground they would have to cover, though, going down one of the many maintenance turbolifts and hiking back towards the hole that the children had originally fallen down was not an option either. 

So, they had ended up having to scrounge up several swoop bikes; vehicles that were not often needed on the simultaneously built-up and blasted clean planet that was Mandalore proper. In the cities, buildings were often so closely built together that it more efficient to simply commandeer public transit; outside of the cities, with their utter lack of anything besides sterile white sand, it was equally more efficient to use larger transport. Even with Onyo’s help, it took hours to track down enough to carry them and their equipment (and hopefully the children). 

Personally, Alexsandr thought that the task would have gone faster if the other two members of their apparent team had helped too. In the case of the Fifth Brother especially, it could have made up for how he had destroyed the lines of the raid. 

But of course, the Inquisitor was far too important for such tasks. Instead of helping, he sat down and ‘meditated’, claiming that he was keeping track of the children down in the Undercity. Alexsandr had just barely been able to keep back the sarcastic comments on how the alien had been unable to do so before the children had fallen down the deep dark hole in the first place.

Wren had been similarly been useless in helping Alexsandr track down the necessary equipment for their sojourn. Silent unless spoken to multiple times, the man spent most of the time spent gathering supplies staring into space; or at least, that was what Alexsandr had assumed he’d been doing. It was so hard to tell when he had never taken off his helmet.

Onyo had, at least, allowing him to see the annoyed twist to her lips as she assisted him. A dark-skinned woman with striking purple eyes, her tightly-kinked hair shaved down to her scalp except for a strip along the very top, she hadn’t seemed to be surprised by how useless the others were. She hadn’t chosen to share why she was not surprised, but it made Alexsandr feel a little better that he wasn’t the only one annoyed. 

Stars, Alexsandr thought to himself as they walked into the prepared maintenance turbolift, if this was how things were starting out, he didn’t like their chances of actually rescuing the children!

The doors hissed shut behind them as Wren reluctantly followed them in. Alexsandr, standing with his arms crossed over his chest by the swoop bikes, nodded to him brusquely. “If you wouldn’t mind selecting the proper level, Commando Wren?”

Wren nodded silently as he did so, selecting what Onyo had told Alexsandr was the topmost level of the Undercity. The button beeped flatly underneath his finger, an ancient-sounding noise that fit with how the turbolift shuddered and shrieked as it began to move. Stepping away from the control panel, he skirted the tall menacing figure of the Fifth Brother and went to stand by Onyo, who was wearing her red-painted helmet once more.

Alexsandr, for his part, chose to cross the massive turbolift to lean against the swoop bikes. The Fifth Brother was near them as well, sitting quietly with his legs crossed, his back ramrod straight and his hands resting on his knees. His eyes were closed — perhaps meditating again. In any case, Alexsandr felt comfortable in ignoring the inquisitor and leaned back, pulling out the datapad that he had stored in one of the bags that they’d attached to a swoop bike and turning it on.

Back during the original failed raid, he had been guessing when he first called out to Wren. When he had first learned about the attack on the Inquisitorius facility, he had made a point of re-acquainting himself with as many missing cadet cases as possible. That attack hadn’t been the first time the Rebellion had been involved in the disappearance of an Imperial cadet, after all. The Rebellion, or Republican Remnant, had never been particularly concerned with who was fighting for it. Why go through the trouble of training your own soldiers, after all, when you can just steal them from your enemy? Alexsandr supposed that with the Jedi involved changing someone’s loyalty was a simple matter.   
Especially if they were literal children, he thought with a frown. Before the Inquisitorius cadets, Sabine Wren had been one of the most well known victims of such a kidnapping, thanks to Viceroy Saxon’s efforts to keep it on the Bureau’s radar.

The datapad screen flickered as he called up the young girl’s file. If he hadn’t been sure before, the picture that was attached to the girl’s file would have put his uncertainty to rest. Wren’s face had thinned over the three years she had been missing, the baby-fat melting away from who knew what trials, but it was still recognizably her that he had seen in the Old City. 

Sabine Wren. Eldest child of Duchess Ursa Wren and her husband Aldrich Wren, entered the Sundari Imperial Academy at the age of twelve with Viceroy Gar Saxon himself as her patron. By all accounts, she had been a brilliant young woman and a credit to her family. When the Fifth Uprising had begun, though…

Alexsandr frowned and scrolled down on the datapad. Record-keeping became spotty during the Uprising, much to his disgust. Considering the troubles that had ripped through Sundari in particular, it wasn’t precisely a surprise, but it still was unpleasant to find. All that had been written down was a few notes that Wren had tried to seek counseling (unsurprising, considering what had happened during the Uprising) and a note that her grades had begun to fall (also unsurprising, due to the same reason). 

And then, of course, at the very bottom of the file, was the simple notice that she had gone missing during the confusion of the attack on Sundari’s Academy. The attack had at first simply been considered the last gasp of the rebels, trying to strike at what they saw as the symbol of so-called Imperial oppression; an attempt to destroy the records of Sundari’s children. It was only afterwards, once the files had been retrieved and repaired as best they could, and a headcount was done, that her absence was discovered. 

The Viceroy had apparently been most displeased by this discovery. Searching the city had not turned the girl up; neither had interrogating her fellow cadets. If it hadn’t been for that single snippet of Wren with an older human man caught on a security camera, his arm tight around her shoulders as he nearly dragged her away, it would have been as if the girl had disappeared into thin air. 

Looking up from the pad, Aleksandr debated going over and trying to talk to the Wren boy. He had been surprised when the Viceroy had named him as Sabine Wren’s brother, knowing from her file that she only had one sibling who was younger than her. The boy across the lift from him was a brawny creature, much taller than his two-years-older sister, who was a slight as her family’s namesake bird. 

He seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with Onyo, though. Straining his ears over the groan of the machinery, Alexsandr tried to hear what they were talking about.   
“— happy now? She’s going to get her wish.” Onyo was saying.

“You don’t know anything,” Wren spat back venomously. “Mother didn’t abandon her, she had to think of the clan!”

Onyo made a disgusted noise. “Of course. The clan must come first, before her own daughter —”

Alexsandr just barely kept his eyebrows from shooting up. What the hell was this? What was Onyo talking about?

He didn’t have time to ponder the words for long, though, because it apparently hit a nerve with Wren. Stepping closer to Onyo, his helmeted head tilted to look at her, and he was hissing something too low for Alexsandr to properly hear —

Onyo slammed her forearm into his chest, making him stagger back, and Alexsandr stopped leaning back against the swoop bikes. “Hey!” he snapped, striding over to them. “What’s going on?”

Even with their helmets on, the two supercommandos managed to look like sulky children. “Nothing,” Onyo said coldly, clearly not willing to elaborate. Wren was rubbing his chest and just looked away when Alexsandr settled his gaze on him. 

“Just a little disagreement,” Wren grumbled.

Alexsandr frowned at them and drew himself up. “And will this little disagreement be continuing when we get down there?” he asked icily. “Onyo, you said yourself that you don’t know what’s down here beyond the repair stations. Wren and Bridger are probably injured and most likely frightened; if you two cannot stay professional —”

“We’re fine. Sir,” Onyo said. “Both of us just want Sabine safe.”

Wren didn’t add anything to that, so Alexsandr counted it as a win. He turned around to go back to leaning against the swoop bikes —

— and nearly bounced off of the Fifth Brother’s chest. Taking a step back, his hand automatically fluttered down to the butt of his pistol.

The Fifth Brother didn’t seem to notice. Or he did notice but didn’t care. “We are nearly at our stop,” he said, his placid tone giving nothing away. “The children are moving away at a steady pace, though. We should not linger.”

Alexsandr had to swallow a few times before he could speak. “Noted,” he squeaked. “Thank you for the update.” Distantly, he realized that they were indeed slowing down, the turbolift’s brakes squealing. He forced himself not to shudder as he turned back to the supercommandos, leaving his back exposed to the Inquisitor. “Look alive then. I don’t want us lingering.”

“Yes sir,” the two of them chorused, heading towards the swoop bikes. Alexsandr watched them go before turning back towards the Inquisitor. “You said you were tracking them?” he asked. “The children.”

“Who else would I be tracking?” The Inquisitor’s voice was still placid. 

Alexsandr thinned his lips but forded onwards. “Would your…powers…happen to tell you the health of the children as well? Considering how far down we are —”

“They are healthy enough to move.” Still the same placid tone.

Alexsandr wanted to yell. The Inquisitor knew damn well what he was asking and was deliberately being obtuse. “They fell from quite a height. Healthy enough to move does not mean uninjured. I merely want to know what sort of injuries we might be facing.”

The Inquisitor blinked, clearly unmoved. “We will know when we find the — children.” He hesitated oddly at the word. “Until then, be content that they are alive and moving.”

Then he abruptly turned on his heel and walked away, towards the swoop bikes.

Alexsandr very nearly swore out loud. Stars, why had he been forced to make do with this group? Two supercommandos that seemed to be on the verge of brawling with each other and an Inquisitor that seemed more interested in establishing dominance over Alexsandr than actually helping find one of his own cadets!

The turbolift came to a stop with a loud groaning shriek that pierced his ears. Able to keep the curses from spilling over his lips but unable to keep the frown from yanking down the corners of his mouth, Alexsandr strode over to the swoop bikes. “Fifth Brother, if you wouldn’t mind taking point since you’re the one tracking the children?” he said testily. “Onyo, Wren, decide between yourselves who will be taking up the rear. We’ll be staying in the diamond formation. Remember, the children may not realize that we’re here to help.”

Onyo snorted. Alexsandr turned his head towards her. “Comments, Onyo?” he asked.

“No sir,” she said crisply. 

Alexsandr waited for a moment to see if she would explain herself, but was left disappointed. The woman merely gazed back, her helmet inscrutable to his eyes. 

“Very well,” he said as the doors opened. “May we find the children quickly.”

* * *

Ezra tried to ignore the pain in his leg that spiked up his leg with every step, but after a good two hours of hiking through what Sabine called the Undercity, he was forced to speak up. “Hey, um, Sabine?” 

Sabine was several feet ahead of him, marching like she was on a mission with her little light swinging around, revealing walls covered in surprisingly bright paintings of people that Ezra had no clue about. “Yeah?” she replied, sounding distracted and not stopping.

Ezra limped along after her, his leg pulsing with pain with every movement. “I know that we have to keep moving and everything, but I think I knocked something out of alignment in my leg when we fell, and it’s *really* hurting. Can we take a break?”

That had her stopping so suddenly that he nearly walked into her. Whirling around, she shone the light in his eyes, blinding him. “Your leg hurts — where?”

Blinking and half-covering his eyes, Ezra grimaced. “Where the reception port meets the leg — and shining your light in my eyes isn’t helping.”

“Sorry.” The light lowered, letting Ezra blink the spots from his eyes and see the concern on her face. “I just — if you’ve damaged your leg, that’s going to slow us down.”

“It already is.” Ezra shifted his weight so that it was off of the leg in question. “I can handle it though, but I need a break. We’ve been walking for like, two hours.”

Sabine sighed and rubbed her nose, but she didn’t look like she was looking down on him for his request. Turning slightly, she swept her little light around them before stopping. “Alright. There — it looks like it opens up to another little plaza. We can sit on the edge of one of the fountains. I can take a look at your leg, see if there’s anything I can do.”

Ezra couldn’t see the fountain, but he trusted her. “Alright.” He didn’t think that there would be much that she could do, but it was better than nothing.

She was right; it was another plaza that they were entering, with more of those fountains. This particular set seemed to be in a circle surrounding some sort of statue, but Ezra wasn’t really paying attention. He wouldn’t be able to recognize the figure, and frankly it was taking everything he had to hobble to the nearest dry fountain without screaming.

Sitting down with a sigh of relief, he reached down and tugged off his boot as best he could without hurting himself more and rolled up his pants’ leg. Rubbing at where his skin met the reception port, he sighed again. It didn’t help a whole lot with the deeper ache that seemed to have settled into his bones, but it did help with some of the muscle pain.

Sabine sat down beside him and put her bag down, slipping the light into her mouth. “Here,” she said around the light, “can you lift your leg into my lap?”

“There’s probably not much you can do,” Ezra said, giving voice to his doubts. “Don’t worry about it, I can handle pain.” The Inquisitors had made very sure of that.

Sabine shook her head, sending the light skittering. “Pain’s a sign that something’s wrong,” she pointed out. “If I can help even a little, that could mean the difference between your leg needing some repairs and you needing a new leg altogether.”

Ezra pressed his lips together. “If you’re sure,” he said. Using both hands, he lifted his leg and settled it in Sabine’s lap, gritting his teeth against the pain. 

The bag opened with a quiet snap, and Sabine squinted down at his leg with a determined expression.

He looked away as she began to pull out small, pointy-looking tools. It was better to try and distract himself than pay attention to how she had begun to poke at the rounded shapes of his prosthetic leg. Ezra intellectually knew that the prosthetic was a very nice one, and that it probably hadn’t come cheap to the Resistance. That didn’t mean that he liked seeing it opened up and fiddled with.

So instead, he used the radiance that was shining off of the little bulb of the light stuck in Sabine’s mouth to examine their surroundings. 

Buildings surrounded them, stretching above and below the plaza they were in. The whole city seemed to be made up like that, as far as Ezra could tell; buildings stacked on top of one another, with only the footpaths and occasional plaza to snake through them, never quite touching the buildings surrounding them. The paths themselves were wide enough for a couple of AT-AT’s to walk down them beside each other, but still the overwhelming impression that Ezra got was one of claustrophobia. No matter how thickly the walls were covered in paintings, it felt like he was slowly being crushed as he looked around. He had grown up on the wide-open plains of Lothal with nothing but the blue sky above him. “Stars,” he muttered to himself, “how could people have lived like this?”

“Because the other option was to die in a bombing raid done by an enemy House,” Sabine mumbled around her light. Something in his leg popped, making it jerk a little, but Ezra ignored it.

“Bombing raid?”

Sabine didn’t answer for a moment, squinting down at the opened panel on his leg, but she eventually looked up at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Most original cities on Mandalore, or at least the ones that aren’t rubble, are built underground. We called them bunker cities in history class.” She tapped a finger against his leg and shrugged. “This was back during the Warring Clans period, of course.” She turned back to his leg and began poking at it.

“…the Warring Clans period?” Sabine raised her head again, almost looking annoyed, and Ezra rushed to defend himself. “Look, I haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since I was seven. I barely know my own planet’s history, let alone yours!”

The annoyance fled, replaced with embarrassment. “Right, sorry. I just — I was raised traditionally; I pretty much lived and breathed this stuff growing up.” Turning back to the leg, she continued to talk. “The Warring Clans period is what we call the overarching period before the founding of the Republic — the one that fell fifteen years ago, not the one before that one —”

Ezra almost interrupted again to ask what she was talking about — multiple Republics, what? — but the wires of his legs popped loudly again and sent a shot of pain zooming up his leg. Instead of interrupting then, he just clenched his jaw to keep from yelping.

“— which is broken up further depending on who the Mand’alor was at the time, which further depends on whether or not your particular clan recognizes them as having been a Mand’alor,” Sabine continued, “and ends actually a little before the Thousand Years of Darkness.”

“I know that one!” Ezra interjected enthusiastically. “I heard some of the Jedi talking about it to a few Resistance members; it’s when the Sith had their own Empire and were fighting the Republic.”

Sabine shot him a crooked smirk. “Yeah,” she said. “Basically, it’s a period when every clan was fighting each other for supremacy. Bombing raids, ambushes — it only ever calmed down when someone managed to gather enough support to start calling themselves Mand’alor.” 

“You mentioned that before — the Mandalore,” Ezra said, mangling the pronunciation of the word. “What is that? I thought that you guys were ruled by a Duchess before the Empire moved in?”

Sabine snorted. “*That* is a story that would require the better part of a week to explain,” she said, “but you’re not wrong. The Mand’alor — it’s an old title. Very old. It dates all the way back to the Migration, before the Warring Clans period. They were the leaders of the Mandalorian people, paragons of what it meant to be a Mandalorian.”

“But you said that not everyone agrees on who was a Mandalore?”

She shrugged. “A lot of people liked to claim the title of Mand’alor; most people only count the ones who were universally acclaimed by the Great Houses though. Or well, can agree on.”

Ezra scratched at the back of his head. “Okay, I think I get it.” He looked back around the plaza and the buildings. “So, it’s when the Republic — the one that we’re fighting to restore — was founded that you guys starting building above ground?”

Sabine closed the panel on his leg and snorted. “Oh, the Republic would love to be able to claim that it’s the reason why we started building above ground.” Gently pushing his leg off of her lap, she put her tools away. “Okay, I think it was just a couple of misaligned wires, they were messing with the signals between the port and the leg. Stand up?”

Ezra obeyed, and the difference was immediately obvious. “Oh wow,” he said, looking down at the prosthetic. He tried to wiggle its toes and smiled as they obeyed, glinting in the light. “Yeah, that feels a lot better!”

He turned and smiled at Sabine, seeing that she was already smiling at him. “I’m glad,” she said, standing up and handing him his boot. “Feel up for another two hours of hiking?”

Ezra mock-grimaced and she chuckled. “I guess,” he drawled sarcastically. “If I have to.”

Sabine chuckled again and slung her bag back over her shoulders. “Glad to hear it.”

The leg really did feel better. His thigh still ached, but that was more from the previous effort of moving it without making the pain flare up. Now, he could already feel the difference, being able to move his leg freely. 

Now, without his pain, he could actually look around as they walked to the other end of the plaza. Now, he could actually begin to see how beautiful it was. 

“Yeah, it is gorgeous, isn’t it?” Sabine said from ahead of him.

Ezra looked away from the mural he had been admiring and scratched the back of his head. “Oh — I said that out loud?”

“Yup,” Sabine replied.

He felt his cheeks heat a little at the amusement in her voice, but forced the embarrassment back. “Well, it is,” he said sincerely. “Really different to the stuff up there, too. You said it wasn’t the Republic that had you guys building above the ground?”

“Yeah.” Sabine swept her light around. “We’ve never been super close with the Republic. A lot of the time we didn’t even allow them on-planet. It was one of our own that convinced us to start building above.”

“One of your own?”

Her light, which was still sweeping around, hit what looked to be a statue and traveled up. “The Last Mand’alor. Tarre Viszla.” Even with the light not directly on her face, he could see the smile spreading across it as she looked up. “The guy that they built this statue of.”

Ezra blinked in confusion, following her light and gaze, and then whistled in amazement as he got a good look at the statue.

A brief glance at the base before had told him that the thing was big, but not how big. Up, up, up, the statue stretched, forcing Ezra to tip his head back in an attempt to take it all in. 

Carved so finely that its cape looked like it would have moved in a breeze, the helmeted figure held a sword aloft in one hand, using it to point upward in the direction it was looking. Underneath the cape, Ezra could see the familiar lines of the armour Sabine usually wore, if modified for a male body, and a belt with several more weapons dangling from it. 

All along the way to this point, Ezra hadn’t seen anything like this. There had been a few statues, yes, but none had been as enormous as this, or carved so realistically. The others had had all the harsh lines and angles that Ezra had the feeling were the hallmarks of Mandalorian art, but this — Ezra could tell that this was supposed to actually look like the person, not just represent them.

“I didn’t even realize any of these were left,” Sabine murmured. Turning his head, Ezra could see her looking the statue up and down with awe. “I thought the Duchess had gotten rid of them all. It probably only survived because it was down so deep…”

After a long moment where she just continued looking at it, Ezra cleared his throat. “You were saying that he was the one that had you guys building up above? Does that have something to do with why he’s called the Last Mand’alor?”

Sabine let out a soft laugh. “You could say that — but you have to understand; getting us to build aboveground wasn’t the only reason for his title. What Tarre Viszla did — stars, it’s easer to list what he didn’t do! Freeing us from the False Mand’alor in single combat, making sure that we were seen as partners to the Republic, not servants, helping to write the outline of the Ruusan Reformations so that there was room for neutral systems —”

“Neutral systems?” Ezra crinkled his nose in thought. “I think I’ve heard of that before.”

“Before the Last Mand’alor, there basically was no concept of a system outside of the Republic that wasn’t an enemy,” Sabine explained. “He’s the one that outlined how the Republic would treat such a system. Because of that, it was only natural during the Clone Wars that we lead them. And that’s just the stuff he did off-planet. On-planet…” She shook her head. “I could talk for hours and barely scratch the surface of how he remade the Mandalorian people. Reforming the legal system, creating an educational system outside of the clans, creating a Mandalorian identity outside of the clans…” She ran a hand through her hair. “He didn’t just rule us in war, he ruled us in peace as well.”

“Well,” Ezra said, “I mean, we still have a ways to go, right? Maybe you can at least start explaining things.”

Sabine looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the statue again. “I — that would be nice,” she said. “Most people outside of Mandalore don’t care about our history. Or they only try to use it to control us like the Empire. But we’re so much more than just warriors. Tarre Viszla — he got the title of the Last Mand’alor because no one felt that they could live up to the example he set, and ninety percent of what he did to earn that had nothing to do with war. He ruled for *eighty years*, and we used the system he put in place to figure out who should rule after him right up to the end of the Clone Wars.”

“That’s amazing,” Ezra said sincerely.

She looked down, smiling softly. “It is,” she agreed. Then she straightened. “You’re right though, we still have a ways to go,” she said, her voice becoming businesslike. Tearing her light away from the statue with what Ezra was sure was reluctance, she strode past him, further into the dark.

Ezra trotted after her. “So, what else did he do? Who was the False Mand’alor, anyways?”

Sabine slowed, allowing him to catch up. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she then wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he came close enough, pulling him into a loose one-armed hug. “Well, like I was saying, Tarre came to power during the Thousand Years of Darkness. Back then, the Mand’alor was technically just the strongest warrior that the Mandalorians could find that they were willing to follow, and that wasn’t always someone that was born Mandalorian or adopted into a clan…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I only realized while editing this that it was mostly an info-dump. Hopefully you still enjoyed it!


	8. Drinks on Us

Fenn needed several things after the day he’d just had and at the top of that list was a karking drink. Staring blearily into the mirror by the door leading out of the suite of rooms that he and his people had been assigned, he mentally added a nap to the list of things he needed. The thin skin underneath his eyes had darkened from the stress and tears of the day, emphasizing the crows-feet at the corners, and the black of his coat, with the Imperial Crest picked out on its shoulder, was only making him look paler.

He had never felt so old and tired. After the meeting with Saxon, though, and finding out that his quest to find his nephew had been doomed from the start, he felt like he had aged two or three decades. 

He wanted to lie down and not move. He wanted to sleep and never wake up. But he couldn’t.

Instead, he was going to go down to the hotel bar and endure an interrogation at the hands of the other Heads. 

Fenn sighed and rubbed at his already-red eyes. It had to be done, he reminded himself sternly. The others had to be informed of Saxon’s demands.

“Alor?” Kandal’s voice was quiet and unobtrusive. “Are you alright?”

“What do you think?” Fenn growled automatically. Then he felt bad. “Sorry,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just — I don’t want to be doing this.”

Kandal was silent for a moment. Fenn smoothed down the already-smooth front of his black jacket, free of any clan insignias. Looking at himself in the mirror again, his lips twisted. He looked like a ghost, his already pale skin that much paler against the colour of the cloth. 

“You can cancel your meeting with them,” Kandal finally said. “Just say that you’re tired, or you don’t want to rouse Saxon’s suspicions —”

Fenn shook his head, cutting the other man off. “No,” he said quietly. “Saxon wanted those maps badly enough to blatantly threaten me with the Grand Inquisitor. Dishonorable as he is, I can’t believe that he would have done so unless he was looking for something very specific down there. And there is not much left down there that hasn’t already been looted.” Fenn had his suspicions, but he wasn’t about to start slinging them around lightly. He needed to talk this over with others, and since the other Heads were here… “If he’s been asking for similar things from the other Heads, then we all need to figure out what it is he’s specifically after. Especially if the Imperial Reclamation Division is working with him.”

Turning away from the mirror, he saw that Kandal’s mouth was pressed into a tight line. “If you’re certain,” he finally said. “If you find yourself needing help though…”

“I’ll call you.” Fenn flashed his comm, unable to even summon a smile. “In the meantime, make sure the room is secure.”

“Of course, alor,” Kandal replied. 

His worried gaze still burned a hole into Fenn’s back as he left the rooms.

When he had first seen the hotel, Fenn had thought that it resembled something from the time of Duchess Satine. The inside of it furthered that impression, with plush carpets and the delicate patterns traced along the walls in gold. It was a building meant for artists, not warriors, and somehow Fenn felt an insult in how he and the other Heads had been corralled in it.

The bar was enormous once he reached it, and decorated as the rest of the hotel was. Golden lines soared along the walls, leading to chandeliers that dripped lights that reflected in the mirrors set between the golden bars on the walls. A large pit filled with black tables butted up against the creamy white bar that had black-clad bartenders standing behind it, their arms nearly blurring as they tried to keep up with the drink orders that were coming in at a dizzying rate. Similarly-clad waiters and waitresses wove between the black tables and climbed the stairs to the upper levels of the establishment where the private rooms were.

And like a grey mold, there were Imperials everywhere. Leaning over their tables, reaching for the servers, some even already passed out despite how early in the evening it was.   
Fenn could barely keep his lip from curling in contempt at them. 

“Sir?”

Fenn turned his head. A young woman, her eyes outlined in thick black circles and wearing the low-cut uniform of a hostess, was clutching a datapad to her chest as she looked at him worriedly.

Biting her scarlet lips, the woman continued speaking once she saw that she had his attention. “My apologies, sir, but may I help you? You look as if you’re looking for someone —”

Her accent was pure Sundari. Fenn’s disgust rose.

This woman — no, this girl, was a Mandalorian. Was the descendant of warriors. And she was working in a bar, with her breasts half-hanging out of her uniform and dodging the hands of drunken Imperials.

It was disgusting. This was what the Mandalorian people had been reduced to; serving drinks to stinking drunks that had never worked hard a day in their life. And there was nothing, nothing at all that Fenn could do about it.

The girl was wilting back from him, and he realized that she was taking his silence as anger. Briefly, he wondered what angry customers did in this bar, and if anyone defended her. Then he moved to reassure her.

“My apologies,” he said, trying to summon a smile for her, “it’s been a long day. I am actually looking for a group — under the name Shysa?”

The girl smiled, and Fenn felt bad for making her so nervous in the first place. “Oh yes, my lord,” she said, turning and gesturing towards the stairs that lead to the upper levels of the bar. “Right this way please!”

Fenn followed her as she lead him up to the private rooms. It was thankfully a bit quieter up here, with fewer people just hanging around. There was more room than he had originally thought there was; rather than it being just a walkway with several small rooms off of the sides, there was another entire floor above the bar below. Doors still lined the walls, but there was also a large space in the middle of the room that was taken up by low armchairs and side tables arranged in circles. Several of them were occupied by Imperials in uniforms that marked them out as being higher-ranked than the rabble below. None of them were pawing at the waiters or passed out; they seemed more interested in conversing in low tones, or reading something on their datapads.

The girl lead him to a door that was close to the back, nearby to the bar where a male Togruta was mixing drinks. The bartender nodded at the girl as she passed and put a bottle of some clear liquid on top of the bar. The girl nodded back and picked it up before continuing on her way. A few steps later, she reached the door and hesitated for a moment before knocking.

As they had reached the door, Fenn had been able to hear the low hum of conversation. At the knock, though, it disappeared.

The hostess didn’t seem to mind. “Sorry for interrupting, Lord Shysa” she chirped as she opened the door, “but your final guest has arrived.”

The tight faces of the other Heads of the Great Houses greeted him. Seated around a circular table, they sat in high-backed chairs with what looked and smelled to be tihaar. Sliding into the room from behind the hostess, Fenn nodded in greeting to them, and then in thanks to the hostess. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she chirped back, overly cheery. Entering the room as well, she placed the jug of clear liquid (which was now clearly more tihaar) onto the table, next to several empty ones. “Can I get you anything before I go?”

“We’re fine,” Shysa said, cutting in before Fenn could reply. “Thank you.”

The girl just bobbed her head and left, thankfully not looking insulted for the abrupt dismissal. The door shut behind her with a click.

Fenn sighed as he sat down, the only open chair between Ordo and Fett. “Is there a glass for me?” he asked, jerking his chin towards the already-open bottle in Ordo’s hand.

Ordo grunted, sliding a traditional small glass in front of him and beginning to pour. “I warn you, this shit isn’t any good. Imps weren’t content with sucking us dry culturally, they also had to take all our booze.”

“Any booze is good booze,” Fenn replied sourly. Taking the now full glass, he slugged it back instead of lingering as was traditional. 

“I take it your conversation with Saxon didn’t go well, then?” Across the table, dressed in deep blue jumpsuit that reminded him the of the Duchess’ old dresses, Bo-Katan watched him carefully with luminous green eyes. 

Glancing around the table, Fenn set the glass back down carefully. “So you heard, then?” None of the other people in the room looked surprised. With glasses at varying levels of fullness in front of them, they were all looking back at him, their faces set in stony stoicism. 

“We try to keep on top of this sort of thing.” Skirata’s voice was dry as a desert. Wearing his usual yellow, eyes narrow with suspicion, he leaned back in his chair. “Feel like sharing why he wanted a one on one with you in particular?”

Fenn narrowed his eyes right back at the other man. “Maps,” he bit out. Turning away, he pushed his glass towards the bottle that Ordo was still holding in a silent request.

Ordo poured it without comment, and when Fenn looked back up, he was treated to raised eyebrows from the rest of the people in the room. 

“Maps?” Bo-Katan sounded incredulous. “Of what?”

Fenn didn’t throw back this glass of tihaar like the first, but he still took a large mouthful, focusing on how it burned its way down his throat. “The Undercity.”

Looks were traded around the table. Looks that Fenn couldn’t miss. Setting his glass back down, it was his turn now to raise an eyebrow. “From your looks I’m taking it that I wasn’t the only one to field a request from the Viceroy?”

“You’d be right.” 

Fenn turned towards the speaker. 

Rhok Fett was a dark-skinned and dark-eyed man, and the look on his face as he glared down at his own glass of tihaar matched the tint of his features. “I was ‘asked’,” the sneer was evident in his voice, “for Tarre Viszla’s journals. The originals.”

Fenn sucked in a breath. The Last Mand’alor’s journals —

“Funny.” Shysa’s glass was hovering in front of his mouth, his eyes glittering. “I was asked for something similar. Tarre Viszla’s travel logs from throughout his rule.” His gaze swept over the table. “And you?” he said into the silence that had fallen over them, addressing no one in particular.

“…The blueprints of the Viszla compound,” Kryze said slowly, running a finger along the edge of her glass. 

Skirata tapped his fingers on the table restlessly. “A list of the clans that House Viszla has married into since the Last Mand’alor.”

“And a record of the modifications made to Tarre Viszla’s armour while he was alive,” Ordo finished, his gray eyes narrowing. He set his own glass down with a clink. “All of them, including the holos.”

Fenn leaned back in his chair. That…he had been confused by Saxon’s request, but now hearing the requests he’d made of the other heads… 

“He’s looking for something.” He drummed his fingertips against the wood tabletop. “And the Empire’s helping him.”

Fett looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“The Imperial Reclamation Division has a camp set up in the Old City,” Fenn replied. “It’s where I was taken to meet with Saxon. The place is crawling with their members.” He grimaced. “Apparently they’ve been working together for a while as well.”

Fett cocked his head to one side in an invitation for Fenn to continue. Everyone’s eyes had turned to him now.

“What gave you that impression?” Ordo asked from behind his glass, one grey eyebrow arched at him.

Fenn’s grimace deepened. “Apparently,” he said, gritting his teeth at the memory, “they were instrumental in reclaiming the Darksaber.”

The room exploded.

“What?!” Skirata, who had also been leaning back in his seat, rocked forward, slamming his hands down on the table. “That di’kut has the Darksaber?! You can’t be serious!”

“I wish I was joking,” Fenn snapped back. “But no. The hut’uun kriffing showed it off in front of me.”

Across from him, he saw that Kryze’s face had gone white with fury, and a quick glance around showed that she was not the only one. The Darksaber was the personal weapon of the leader of Mand’alor, and not something that an honourless piece of shit like Saxon should be wielding. He was no leader, only the dog of the Empire.

“And you just let him keep it —” Skirata began hotly.

“I was surrounded by his men and had no idea where I was in the Old City,” Fenn snapped. “Trying to take it would have only accomplished getting myself killed.”

“It was right there —”

“Stop.” Fett’s voice was cold. “Now is not the time to argue.” 

The eyes of everyone in the room were now on the dark-skinned man. “We have been given information. Saxon has been asking for very specific items from us, and is working with the Imperial Reclamation Division. Why?”

“Because he’s a dick?” Ordo offered dryly. His eyebrows were knit together, and a puddle of tihaar surrounded his glass on the table from him slamming it down.

Fett shook his head. “No. All of this, it’s for a purpose. Saxon’s an honourless hut’uun, but he’s not a stupid one.” He tapped a fingernail against his glass, making it ring softly. “He knows that we hate him. He knows that the people resent him and the Empire that placed him in charge. And now he has the Darksaber.” His eyes narrowed. “He’s trying to make himself look more legitimate.”

Kryze grimaced. Lifting her cup, she took a swallow and slammed it back down. “Even if he has the Darksaber, that’s not enough to make him popular. And it doesn’t explain his new obsession with old records.”

“With old records of the Last Mand’alor,” Fett corrected. “You’re right that the Darksaber isn’t enough. He’s looking for more, and the Empire’s helping him.”

“What else is there, though —” Kryze froze midsentence, her eyes widening. She carefully set down her mug.

Fenn blamed his exhaustion for not being able to follow. “You’ve figured it out?” he said. “Mind sharing with the rest of the class?”

There was another clink from beside him. Turning his head, he saw that Ordo was clenching his jaw and looking at Fett. “I get it,” he said. “You think he’s trying to loot more of the Last Mand’alor’s stuff, make himself look legitimate.”

“Not just his stuff,” Fett said, shaking his head. “One item in particular.”

One item in particular. Something about how he said it shook the dust off of the gears in Fenn’s head, allowing him to realize what Fett was talking about.

There was only one thing that would give Saxon more legitimacy than the Darksaber. One thing that no other warlord had held since the end of the Thousand Years of Darkness.

“The Mask of Mand’alor,” Fenn said, digging his fingers into the tabletop. “You think he’s asking for all of these records to try and find the Mask of Mand’alor.”

Fett only nodded, and Fenn felt like he couldn’t breathe.

The Mask of Mand’alor. The traditional helm of the leader of the Mandalorian people, last worn by Tarre Viszla himself and buried with him when no one else felt that they could claim the title after him. Lost along with the location of his tomb.

That was why the Empire wanted that information from them. They were trying to find his tomb so that they could loot it. Could give the Mask to their puppet Viceroy. 

The others looked as sick as Fenn felt. 

“He can’t think that we’d accept that,” Skirata said. “The Empire can’t think that they can just give the Mask to him and have us all bow down.”

“If the IRD is involved, that is most likely exactly what they think they can do,” Fett retorted. He was drumming his fingers on the table again. 

Fenn stood up, the chair screeching against the floor. 

It was too much. It was too much to think of that hut’uun wearing the Mask —

“I need some air,” he said quietly as the others turned to look at him. The tihaar in his stomach was roiling. 

“There’s a balcony out on the other side of the bar,” Shysa offered, equally as quiet. 

“Thank you.”

* * *

The balcony outside was large and empty, thankfully. Walking out of the hot, stuffy bar into the comparatively cool night air, Fenn sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

The Mask of Mand’alor. The Committee of Public Safety. Aji. Fenn leaned against the railing, his now-mussed hair ruffling in the breeze as he blankly watched the hover-cars whiz by against the backdrop of the city at night. The glittering lights blinked in and out against his vision as the cars passed, reminding him of the night sky on Concord Dawn.

He’d never felt so helpless. Never felt that there was truly nothing he could do. The Committee of Public Safety was the true power of the Empire; if they were hiding Aji, had always been hiding Aji — then he’d never had a hope of finding him. And if the Empire was behind this attempt to steal the Mask of Mand’alor from the Mandalorian people…

First they’d taken his family. Now they were taking his culture.

Fenn rubbed his face. He should have brought a bottle with him.

Behind him, he heard the door to the balcony open. The sounds of a low male voice and a woman’s laughter reached his ears and he sighed, lowering his hands from his face. He’d hoped that he’d have at least a little time to himself, but it seemed that even that would be denied to him today. It fit with how things were going lately though. Why would he be granted this one small favour?

Continuing to lean against the railing, he hoped that the couple would take the hint and at least ignore him, if not leave entirely.

No such luck. The couple, of course, came right up to the same railing he was leaning against, happily chirping away at each other. It was a small mercy that they at least kept their voices down.

Determined as he was to ignore them, Fenn eventually couldn’t resist a small peek out of the corner of his eye after several minutes passed.

It was a male human and a female twi’lek, to his surprise. Twi’leks were rarely seen outside of Imperial slave pens these days, especially ones as pretty as the green-skinned one leaning against her companion’s chest. Even from the corner of his eye, Fenn could tell that the woman was a rare beauty. Long-lashed as most twi’leks were, they framed her luminous eyes well and only brought attention to her high cheekbones when they fluttered closed as her companion murmured something into her earcone. Her knee-length dress moved about her legs invitingly as she turned, pressing a hand against her male companion’s chest and returning the favour of murmuring in his ear.

The man was equally as attractive as the twi’lek. Long, dark hair pulled back from a strong face and gathered in a bun at the nape of his neck, his dark clothes and skin just made the brilliant blue-green of his eyes stand out that much more as he chuckled and glanced up at Fenn through dark lashes. 

Hurriedly, Fenn looked away. Now was not the time, he told himself sternly. Besides, he had at least two decades on them both.

Then, because it was that kind of day, the man called out to him. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

Fenn didn’t look at him. Tapping at the railing, he forced himself to keep his gaze steady on the cars and lights in front of him. “If you say so,” he replied, keeping his tone stiff and cool to cover his embarrassment at being caught peeping.

The man chuckled again, low and warm. If Fenn wasn’t so embarrassed, he would have enjoyed its rich tones. “Of course, I find that company tends to make any night better.”

“Much better,” the twi’lek added. “Might we ask what brought you here tonight?”

Fenn risked another glance over at them. With their arms around each other’s waist and the woman’s hand still on the man’s chest, they cut a very pretty picture. One that if he had been two decades younger he wouldn’t have thought twice about taking up on their unspoken offer.

But he was not two decades younger. “The balcony specifically or the bar itself?”

The two of them seemed to take that as an invitation. Coming closer with smiles on their faces, they settled back against the railing so close that had Fenn wanted to he could have touched them. The man’s black jacket slipped open, revealing a bright white shirt that set off the deep tan of his skin and the green of hers very nicely. Very nicely indeed.

So nicely that it was suspicious. 

With the shock of realizing what Saxon was trying to pull inside, Fenn’s mind had been spinning too hard to truly think on what was going on. Now, however…

The man and the woman were a very attractive pair, and clearly looking for someone to join them for the night. So why were they going after a forty-something like him when there were plenty of attractive young things in the bar inside?

No, there was something rotten here. These people had to have searched him out on someone’s orders. A someone that he was pretty sure he knew.

“Well,” the woman was continuing, “you were looking rather lonely out here; why don’t we start with the balcony?”

Her eyes were gleaming in the light that was streaming out of the building. So were his. They really were both his type.

Fenn turned away from looking out over the city and crossed his arms, leaning back again against the railing. He was looking over the two of them carefully now. “What do you think happened?” Generally speaking, the Empire was not fond of the ‘lower races’, as they termed twi’leks and other commonly enslaved species. He wouldn’t have thought that Saxon or his masters would use one to try and entrap him. The man was scruffier than most Imperials as well — but again, that was his type.

It was no fun, getting in bed with someone that trimmed their beard with a ruler.

The man frowned exaggeratedly, rubbing his bearded chin. “Hmm, well, handsome fella like you — I doubt it was someone turning you down…”

Fenn was pulled from his suspicions and just barely kept the irritation off of his face. 

Really? That blatant? Did Saxon think he was that desperate?

Yeah, these were definitely Imperial plants. 

The woman laughed and gently smacked the man’s chest. “Adem,” she chided gently, “stop. He thinks you’re teasing him.” 

“What?” the man drawled, grinning. “No. Do I look like a man that teases handsome older men, Eva?”

The woman just laughed again. “I’m sorry about him,” she said, turning to Fenn. “Can I buy you a drink? As an apology.”

Her eyes were glittering in the low light of the balcony. Her smile looked genuine, and as Fenn glanced from her to the so-called Adem, he saw that his smile hadn’t faded in the least. They looked happy, and sincere, and all of a sudden it was too much. 

Too much interest. Too much joy. Fenn looked like hell and he knew it. The tight knot of grief that had tucked itself up in his chest just underneath his heart was throbbing. These two were so happy and pleasant, working for Saxon, while he was grieving the true loss of his nephew, his only remaining family…

He smiled pleasantly at the twi’lek, uncrossing his arms to rest them on the railing. “That depends. Do you feel up to splitting a bottle of boga noga between the three of us?”

“Ooh, adventurous,” Adem commented, shifting closer to Fenn. Close enough that Fenn could feel the heat of his hand where it was almost touching his.

Eva smiled at Fenn, ignoring her partner. “Oh, I think I do,” she replied, nearly purring. Disentangling herself from her partner, she winked. “Don’t let Adem start the party without me, would you?”

Fenn kept his smile on his face and nodded. The twi’lek sashayed away, her hips swaying enticingly as her skirt rustled, revealing tantalizing glimpses of her strong green thighs. 

The door opened and shut as she went through it, leaving him alone with the man. Who did not wait long, shuffling closer to him so that they were touching now, their arms pressed together and the man’s head dipping so that he could murmur something in Fenn’s ear.

Something that he wasn’t in the mood to listen to. All of the frustration and sorrow and rage that had been kept at a simmer through pure force of will boiled over, and Fenn moved. Twisting away from the man’s warmth, Fenn’s hand lashed out, catching the other man by the throat. Putting all of his considerable weight and muscle behind the move, he _shoved_ , feeling the man beginning to tip over the railing…

…And then catch himself, just in time. Clamping his hands around the wrought metal and pushing back, he kept himself from toppling over. But he didn’t manage to straighten back up, because by this time, Fenn had brought his other arm into play and was pressing down. Feeling his lip curl back from his upper teeth, he glared down at the man, who was staring back with wide turquoise eyes. 

“Listen,” Fenn said in a conversational tone that was completely at odds with what he was actually feeling, “I’ve had a rough few days lately. I’ve been forced to bow to a man I hate and promise to hand over priceless family relics to his Imperial masters. I’ve discovered that the Committee for Public Safety is apparently involved in the disappearance of my nephew — who is my last remaining family — from one of their precious academies. And I just figured out that the Empire is planning to steal a priceless cultural relic of my people and give it to their little puppet so that they can parade him around like he’s the rightful ruler of Mandalore.” He leaned in closer to the man’s reddening face, seeing a drop of sweat roll down his temple. “So if you could go back to Saxon and let him know that I’m not about to crawl into bed with two of his traps, that would be great.”

“I’m not —” the man wheezed, before his eyes widened. “Wait, the Committee of Public Safety —”

A blaster cocked, the sound very loud in Fenn’s ear.

“Take you hands off of him,” an icy female voice demanded. Fenn could feel the warm metal of the blaster’s barrel brush against his ear. Clenching his jaw, he tried to move his head. 

That only got the barrel digging into his scalp as opposed to brushing against it. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” the woman snapped.

Reluctantly, Fenn obeyed. Loosening his grip, he let the man up. A few of his hairs had escaped from the bun, framing his face as he coughed and rubbed his face. “Wait, Hera —”

The woman — Hera — made a sharp noise, and Fenn filed the name away. “Adem,” she said meaningfully, her blaster not wavering in the slightest from Fenn’s head. Neither did her eyes.

“His nephew disappeared from one of Mandalore’s academies,” the man replied.

That got her eyes moving. She turned to stare at the man in disbelief, and Fenn struck.

Grabbing her wrist, he twisted it, forcing her to drop the blaster. With his other hand, he caught it. A brief glance showed the thing to be fully charged, and he leveled it at the woman’s head. “Right,” he snapped, “enough of this. Talk. Now.”

The two looked at each other, seemingly entirely unconcerned that he now had a blaster pointed at the woman — Hera’s — head. Fenn clenched his jaw again. “ _Talk._ ”

The two of them seemed to come to an agreement. Turning back to him, the woman shook her head. “Not here,” she said in a low voice. “There are too many ears.” Pulling out a comm from one of her dress pockets, she clicked it on. “What’s your frequency?”

Fenn looked at her in disbelief. “What?”

“Your nephew — he’s not the only child that’s disappeared from an Imperial academy lately,” she said tersely. “Your frequency.”

“What?” His mind scrambled. This woman — his eyes flicked over to the man and saw that his face was equally grave. He knew that others had disappeared from the academies, but something about the woman’s tone…

For a few furious seconds, he chewed on the inside of his cheek. He was beginning to suspect that these two were perhaps not sent by Saxon, were perhaps not involved with the Empire at all — but that just made them even more dangerous. 

“You said that the Committee was involved in your nephew’s disappearance,” the man said quietly. “From the way you’re talking, I’m guessing that they haven’t been communicative. I think that we know why.”

Fenn swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

“We can’t talk here,” the man said, “but you deserve to know what happened.” He jerked his chin towards the woman. “Give her your frequency, and we’ll talk somewhere safer.”

For a long, long moment Fenn was paralyzed. The man was speaking so casually about this, this thing that had devoured his thoughts for the past year and a half —

“Fine,” he said harshly. “Fine.” Lowering the blaster, he pulled his own comm out. It might be his doom, but he couldn't let this chance to find out what had happened to his nephew pass him by. 

He could only hope that this wouldn't result in him losing everyone else he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! The info-dumps are at an end, at least for now! Hope you guys enjoyed this!


	9. Taking the Plunge

The transmission had come to Fenn’s comm several hours after the man and the woman had departed, and he had returned to the room with the rest of the Heads. He had been quiet after his return; too quiet, he knew, with the glances he had earned. Especially from Kryze. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care, however. His mind was too occupied with confusion over what had happened on that balcony. 

Now, lying back in his room’s bed, the silence of the suite echoing in his ears, he considered his options. 

The transmission hadn’t been much. Just a location, down in the spaceport. A place that could have been on Concordia, for how heavily he knew his rooms were being watched. He had been warned to keep to the hotel by the Imperials, and he had no doubt that if he was caught trying to sneak out Saxon would know and have sent bombers to Concord Dawn within the hour. The man and the woman hadn’t explained much either — unsurprising, since Fenn was fairly certain at this point that they were rebel operatives. No, if he went to this location, he could bring everything crashing down around his ears and get everyone he knew killed.

But. But. 

They had said in the message that they knew why the Committee had been blocking his attempts to find his nephew. They had said that he deserved to know what had happened.

He was holding his comm so tightly that its edges were digging into his hand. 

It was too good to be true, part of his mind pointed out. Two rebel operatives knowing what happened to his nephew and just so happening to try and seduce him? It was more likely that the two had said that to get away without him raising the alarm.

But who better to have gotten past the Committee’s barriers, pointed out another part of his brain. Who better to know its dirty little secrets? If he passed this chance by he would never be able to forgive himself.

Knowing or not knowing, just having this address on his comm was treason, pointed out the rest of his brain. The sort of treason that would have Concord Dawn and all of House Rau purged like Sundari. 

Growling, Fenn sat up. Swinging his legs over the side of the too-plush bed, he scrubbed his face roughly and stood up. Crossing the dark room, he stepped into the bathroom and flicked on the light.

The bulb buzzed as it flickered on, filling the white-tiled room with its harsh light. Leaning over the sink, Fenn turned on the tap and splashed cold water onto his face, wishing he could wash away the doubts from his mind as easily as he could the sticky film of exhaustion.

Leaning over the white marble sink, he didn’t reach for the towel right away. Letting the water droplets roll off of his face, he closed his eyes, blocking out the pitiless light.

He wanted to go. He wanted to go so, so badly. It was because of him that his nephew had disappeared after all. It was because he had let his fear of the Empire rule him that his last remaining family was gone, because he had to just roll over and show his belly to Saxon. He could say that he was thinking of his House all he wanted; he knew the truth. He had just been scared.

Aji had begged him. He had begged him to not let the Empire take him, and Fenn had just brushed him off. Aji had trusted him, and Fenn had betrayed him. Had betrayed the Resol’nare, and what it meant to be a Mandalorian.

“Alor?”

Fenn opened his eyes, and saw that he was no longer alone. Kandal, shirtless and wearing loose sleeping pants was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, one hand resting on the doorframe. “I saw the light on when I was getting some water. Are you alright?”

Swallowing, Fenn picked up the handtowel by the sink and began to pat his face dry in lieu of answering right away. The both of them knew that he wasn’t okay; even a quick glance in the mirror showed that the dark circles that had hung under his eyes since he arrived had gone precisely nowhere. 

He ran a hand through his hair, pushing back the few strands that had managed to fall in his eyes. 

“Did the meeting not go well?” Kandal asked softly. “You didn’t say much when you returned.”

“It went fine, Kandal,” Fenn replied, his voice equally as soft. “Just — we weren’t the only ones that the Empire requested artifacts from.”

Kandal was silent, but his eyes were bright.

Fenn swallowed again, twisting the towel in his hands in an old nervous habit. “Saxon and the IRD are trying to find the Mask of Mand’alor.”

Kandal stiffened. “That was buried with the Last Mand’alor, no one knows where his tomb is —”

Fenn nodded. “Thus, why he’s asking for old artifacts from the Great Houses. A map of the Undercity from me, old marriage records from Skirata, armour modification records from Ordo, journals from Fett, travel records from Shysa, even the blueprints of the old Viszla Compound on Concordia. He’s trying to figure out where it is so he can make himself look more legitimate.”

“That hut’uun,” Kandal growled. “He would sell our very culture to the Empire.”

Fenn nodded morosely. “He already has the Darksaber.”

Kandal swore and slammed his fist against the door frame. 

Still twisting the towel, Fenn didn’t say anything in reply. He felt tired. Empty. All of his anger earlier had fled from him, leaving only despair. 

His family was gone. Soon his culture would be claimed by the Empire. It felt like he had already lost the fight.

“That’s not all though, is it?” Kandal asked. He almost sounded like he was pleading with him. “You have something else?”

Fenn bowed his head. “I — think I found some rebels,” he said haltingly. “At the bar. They said that they knew something about what happened to Aji.”

Kandal went very, very still.

The words continued to spill from Fenn. “They sent me coordinates, an address at the spaceport where we can meet and talk. I know it’s too good to be true, I know we’re being watched, but I can’t —” His voice caught.

Kandal’s arms were wrapping around him before he could blink, tucking his face into the crook of his neck. “He’s your nephew,” he said, his voice thick. “You raised him, you protected him —”

“I didn’t protect him,” Fenn said, his voice breaking underneath the weight of his guilt. “I handed him over to the Empire without a fight.”

“You did what you thought was the right thing,” Kandal said, hugging him tighter. “If we lived in any sane galaxy he would have been fine.”

Fenn swallowed wetly. “But we don’t,” he said.

“We don’t,” Kandal agreed sadly.

For a long while, they just stood there in the bathroom, holding each other as their words echoed in the air between them. Fenn struggling to keep back his tears of shame and confusion, Kandal letting him get himself back under control without comment.

Finally, when he felt like he could speak without sobbing, Fenn opened his mouth. “If I go, I could get all of House Rau killed.”

“Then don’t,” Kandal said.

Fenn pressed his face harder into the crook of Kandal’s neck. “But Aji —”

“Let me finish, alor,” Kandal said, pulling back. “You can’t go, but things are looser for us. Mahhae, Fokkay and I have already been in and out on errands. We’re watched too, but it’s looser for us. Easier to slip away.”

But Fenn had to shake his head. “No, I can’t ask you to take that risk for someone not of your clan —”

“He may not be part of our clan, but Aji is a part of our families,” Kandal interrupted, his voice firm. Reaching up, he clapped a hand on top the back of Fenn’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. “Just as you are a part of our family as well. Let us take the risk for you, Fenn.” His eyes were soft. “Let us all do our part in bringing Aji home.”

His throat swelling with emotion, Fenn tried to swallow it back and failed. Instead, he showed his appreciation the only way his could — by burying his face back in the crook of Kandal’s neck and holding him as tightly as he could, his heart filled with love.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

* * *

“So you nearly got thrown off of a balcony and revealed us to some Imp and didn’t even get access to their records?” Zeb growled, the table creaking underneath his grip. 

“He wasn’t an Imp,” Kanan explained for the tenth time. It had taken hours to get back to their ship; first mingling at the bar some more so that they wouldn’t attract attention by rushing out, and then being forced to take Sundari’s public transit, which was a picture of Imperial (in)effeciency, only to meet Zeb’s incredulity when they returned without any of the information that they’d gone for — it was not how Kanan had been hoping to end the day. He’d loosened his collar when they had finally gotten back to the ship but he could still feel the ghost of the furious man’s hand pressing down on his windpipe. Against his will, he reached up to rub it. “We made a mistake when we originally identified him.”

“Yeah, his words,” Zeb sneered. “How do we even know this nephew of his is real? It could just be a trick —”

“He had no idea that we were rebels, Zeb,” Hera said firmly, still wearing her dress but having covered it with one of Kanan’s sweaters, the sleeves hanging over her hands and bunching up where she was gripping the handle of her mug of tea. “I looked him up as soon as we got back; his name is Fenn Rau. He’s the head of one of Mandalore’s Great Houses and everyone knows how much they hate Viceroy Saxon.”

Zeb growled again, rubbing his forehead. “Can’t believe that I have to explain this to you two, but just because they hate the Imps doesn’t mean that they’re our friends! Or have you forgotten Tarkin —”

“None of us have forgotten Tarkin,” Kanan interrupted. How could they? Before everything had gone down with Ezra and Dromund Kaas, they’d had a mission in the Eriadu sector that Tarkin had claimed as his own. 

That man was the very worst of the Resistance. A hateful, twisted monster who blamed the Jedi and everyone else around him for the fall of the Republic, his way of waging war was enough to make even a hardened soldier vomit. Strapping bombs to hostages, assassinations, even leaving Imperial ships to drift into stars once their engines were damaged enough with the comms on so that passing ships could hear their screams —

Needless to say, they were all happy to get the hell out of there once that particular mission was over. There was fighting a war and then there was — that.

Kanan sighed and tugged his hair free of its ties, letting it spill out over his shoulders, and ran his hands through it. “Look,” he said, scratching at his scalp, “it wasn’t just us liking his face or anything like that. The Force —”

“The same Force that didn’t bother to warn us about the ambush in the first place?” Zeb spat acidly. “That Force was — what, giving you the thumbs-up about this guy while he was trying to throw you off the balcony?” He snorted. “Yeah, I’m totally ready to trust that Force.”

Kanan switched to pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Thankfully, Hera took over again. Setting down her mug, she picked up the datapad that she’d left lying on the table and gestured with it. “Then trust in this,” she said sternly, shoving the pad underneath Zeb’s nose.

Growling, Zeb took it, his green eyes flicking over the information on the screen quickly. Then more slowly, his eyes narrowing and ears slowly pinning back. Finally, he looked back up, his expression incredulous. “Is this real?”

Hera had picked her much back up and taken another few sips as he read. Her lips tightened, and she nodded. “Right from the Academy records themselves. The public ones at least.”

Zeb shook his head. “Sixteen inquiries to see their private records. Asking where his nephew is.” His ears twitched. “How in the Sith hells has he not had an ‘accident’ before this?”

“Most likely the Empire was worried that it would set off the Great Houses,” Hera replied. “They’re the natural rallying points for any Mandalorian rebellion. Right now, they’re too cowed from the Fifth Uprising and the Cleansing to do anything, but House Rau was one of the first houses to join up with the Last Mand’alor. Small as they are, they still have a lot of cultural power, and trying to take him out could upset the balance of power here. The other Great Houses could parade him around as a martyr, and that’s the last thing that the Empire wants.”

Kanan raised an eyebrow. “Been talking with Sabine, lately?”

“Rebellion Intelligence, actually,” Hera said. She put her mug back down. “Though she’s mentioned that none of the Uprisings so far have had the backing of a Great House. If the Empire wanted to kill Rau, they’d have to kill the rest of the Heads as well if they didn’t want an even bigger headache on their hands.”

Zeb grimaced, his eyes darkening. Sighing, he put the datapad down. “Back on topic, though — I didn’t even realize that Mandalorians had Force-sensitives, the way their history has gone.” He rubbed his forehead. “Would have thought that they killed them all or something, what with how often they fought the Jedi.”

Kanan shook his head. “Their beef was always with the Jedi, not the Force.” He dropped his hair-ties onto the table and collapsed into one of the seats, rubbing his face. “They didn’t like the whole ‘thinking larger than their family’ thing.” 

“That’s unfair,” Hera warned. “According to Sabine, it was more the ‘separating children from their families’ thing that they had trouble with.”

Kanan waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Whatever,” he said. 

_Bang bang bang._

The sound of knuckles being rapped against the metal of the raised entry ramp echoing through the ship put an immediate end to the conversation. All three of them automatically tensed at the noise, trading glances. 

Who would be knocking at their ship this early in the morning? They’d sent their location to Rau, but it had barely been more than three hours. The man had clearly been at the end of his rope, yes, but would he have been able to get away from his Imperial watchers so quickly?

Slowly, they all got up and grabbed their weapons.

Kanan felt a cold sweat prickle at his hairline. He’d assured Zeb that the Force had told him it was okay, but the large alien had had a point. This was the same Force that had failed to warn them about the ambush…

The knocking sounded again. _Bang bang bang._

“Got your six,” Zeb rumbled. “You good on point?”

“Yeah,” Kanan replied, heading towards the cargo bay of the ship. He clicked the safety off of his blaster and felt the tibanna gas in it hum. “Thanks.” Without having to say anything, he heard Hera head towards the cockpit, ready to rev up the engines if it was an Imperial patrol waiting at their ship’s ramp.

The knocking sounded a third time before they reached the ramp release switch. The prickling of sweat had graduated to drops sliding down his back as Kanan hit it, his blaster for now at his side.

With a low groan and a loud hiss, the Ghost’s ramp began to lower. Behind him, Kanan heard a crackle as Zeb’s bo-staff powered up. 

As the ramp lowered, though, there wasn’t an Imperial squad waiting to arrest them. There wasn’t even a group; only a single person in a cloak, the hood pulled up high over their head and tugged low over their face. And underneath — the geometric gleam of Mandalorian armour. 

Kanan found himself relaxing. “Rau, I assume?” he asked lightly, still keeping a hand on his blaster. 

The figure bristled. “Don’t say that name,” they hissed, quickly moving up the ramp — quick enough to have Zeb bristling behind Kanan. “Not out here.”

Kanan narrowed his eyes. He’d been concentrating on keeping Rau from throwing him off of the balcony, but he was pretty good with voices. “You’re not Rau,” he said, hitting the button to raise the ramp once more. The hissing of its hydraulics covered his words from anyone outside hearing him. “And this is a private dock.”

With a frustrated noise, the figure pulled off their hood and helmet, revealing a dark-skinned, bearded face with close-cropped hair. “Of course he didn’t come,” he said flatly. “He’s the Head of a Great House; the only people being watched more closely by the Empire are actual prisoners.” His dark eyes darted around the bay. “My name is Kandal Vron, of Clan Vron, House Rau. I’m here as his representative.” Clearly not finding what he was looking for, his full lips twisted and he turned his eyes back towards Kanan and Zeb. “Now, I’ve heard you have some knowledge about my alor’s nephew?”

* * *

“And that,” Sabine said as she stepped over some rubble, “is why House Fett doesn’t talk about Jango Fett.”

In the dim light of her tool, Ezra’s blue eyes were large and round. “Wow,” he said, “just…wow.”

Sabine grinned at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Wow.”

Ezra shook his head. “I just — man. You’d never hear of something like that on Lothal,” he said. Then he wrinkled his nose. “Or at least, not so recently. There were some land disputes that got pretty heated back in the day.”

“Oh?” Sabine asked. “I didn’t think that land was in short supply there.”

“It isn’t.” Ezra shrugged. “I never really understood it either; I guess something about you know, ‘I was here first’ ‘no you weren’t’ and that sort of thing.” He scratched his chin. “There was one incident, or well, a chain of incidents that’s still pretty famous. The Haffilds and Mikkoys. Ended with the Haffields surrounding the Mikkoy house and setting it on fire while they were sleeping.” 

Another pile of rubble had come up, this one much bigger than the last and looking like the majority of a collapsed building had spilled across the street. It rose higher than her head in some places, necessitating them to climb over it. 

They were lucky that they could see it, this far down. Even with Sabine’s little light, the gloom of the Undercity pressed close. Ancient and covered by the built-up Sundari above, light was rare to find down here. What little power was still run down here was concentrated around the thick pillars that held up the city above, and natural light only occasionally managed to squeeze through the small gaps of the Old City above. One such gap twinkled far up above them like a star in a cloudy sky, giving them just that much more light.

Ezra continued. “Shot everyone that ran out, with only a single person surviving. There’s a pretty good song about it too.”

Sabine raised her eyebrows. She’d noticed a while back that Ezra had started limping again, her repair job apparently not holding up, so she got to climbing the pile first. Reaching the top, she held out a hand to help him. “A song,” she said, grunting a little with the effort of lifting him. “Funny. I didn’t think that anyone outside of Mandalorians ever made a point of remembering things like that through music.”

Grunting as well, Ezra shot her a grin as he reached the top. “Yeah, well, people are people, no matter where they come from. Everyone loves a good murder ballad, especially when you can visit the site where it happened.”

Sabine grinned back. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then Ezra stiffened. His eyes widened, and his head snapped around, facing back the way that they’d come.

All of the contentment that had been buzzing in her chest abruptly drained away. “Ezra?” She reached out, touching his shoulder.

He shivered underneath her hand. “They’re coming.”

Yep, there went her stomach. “What?”

He turned his head back towards her, the fear clear in his eyes. “The Inquisitor. The Fifth Brother. I can feel him. He’s coming, and he has other people with him.”

Sabine swallowed. Then she looked around. The pile they were on was indeed the rubble of a building; this part of the Undercity seemed to be in worse repair than the part that they’d fallen down into in the first place. The hulking masses of buildings, holes where windows and doors had once been, surrounded them like the dead hives of insects. None of them looked particularly sturdy.

In the distance, she thought that she could hear the sound of swoop bike engines. Biting the inside of her cheek, she decided that the buildings would do. 

“Come on,” she said, using her hand on Ezra’s shoulder to tug him towards the other side of the pile. “We won’t be able to outrun them so we need to find a place to hide. There has to be somewhere here where they won’t find us.”

Ezra didn’t reply, but he reached up and squeezed her arm, allowing her to help him down. 

By the time they hit the ground, Sabine knew that she was right. She had heard the sound of engines in the distance, and now they were even closer. Looking around, she spotted a building that looked a little less decayed to the others and pointed at it. “In there.”

The inside of the building was even darker than outside, her little light barely penetrating the gloom. She could just barely see the outlines of tipped-over furniture. Despite that, though, she partially covered the light. There was no reason to make the Empire’s search easier on them. Shuffling through the dust coating the floor, she kept a hand on Ezra’s wrist and headed deeper into the house.

Just in time, too. The roar of engines had been coming closer all this time. As they slipped through the doorway leading into the rest of the house, the roar became deafening, announcing their arrival.

Then the noise stopped, leaving only echoes fading in the air. 

Sabine tensed. Underneath her hand, Ezra went rigid.

“Fifth Brother,” said the Agent from up above, “I assume that you stopped for a reason?”

“They are here.” The Inquisitor’s odd buzzing voice with its looping accent was almost placid in certainty. “Hiding in the buildings.”

Ezra whimpered softly, twisting his hand so that he could dig his nails into Sabine’s wrist. She tried to squeeze him reassuringly, even as her mind raced.

“Uh huh.” An unfamiliar female voice, crackling like she was wearing a helmet, interjected, sounding utterly unimpressed. “And do you have anything more precise than that? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s a lot of buildings around here.”

And then Sabine’s mind slowed down. She let out a soft sigh of relief. That was good; they didn’t know precisely where they were. The silence following the woman’s words was proof enough. She could work with that.

Leaning over, she let her lips brush against the shell of Ezra’s ear as she whispered. “We need to keep moving. These old buildings are always connected to each other, so we should be able to find another back door.”

She felt Ezra’s ear move away from her mouth, replaced by hair and signifying him nodding. Uncovering the light a little more, they began to slowly creep through the house once more. 

Outside, the conversation continued, but inside, they inched along, searching the gloom for another door. This room was larger than the entryway, with more and larger pieces of furniture littering the floor. Bits of glass and other detritus crunched quietly underfoot, making Sabine wince as the noise sounded as loud as a blastershot in the quiet of the Undercity. The argument outside (because it had definitely graduated to an argument by now, judging by the raised voices) never wavered, however, making her feel a bit better.

Ezra’s hand hadn’t left her wrist since they had first heard the Inquisitor’s voice, it’s grip so tight that it verged on painful. Now, it tightened even further, gaining her split attention. “Here,” he whispered. “I found it — I found the door!”

Shining her light, a relieved smile broke out across her face just as the argument outside finally came to a stop with a barked command by the agent. 

“Enough!” he snapped in his deep, Core-accented voice. “Arguing over this brings us no closer to finding the children. We’ll start by sweeping the buildings. Inquisitor, you’ll be with me while the commandos stick together and start on the other buildings.” 

Sabine assumed that he was gesturing, but she didn’t devote much brainpower to it. Instead, she tried to figure out how to open the door in front of them without it being powered. There was a crack where it hadn’t closed completely, but it wasn’t even wide enough to fit a finger into as she groped at the cold metal.

Beside her, Ezra stiffened. “Sabine,” he whispered, “they’re coming over here. The Fifth Brother and the agent.”

Alright, opening the door had just gotten a lot more urgent. Sabine swung her light around the room, looking for something she could use to pry the thing open. The only things that met her eyes were large lumps of furniture, covered in rotting fabric. She swore under her breath.

Turning back to Ezra, she saw that he was pale in the faint light, his eyes locked on the doorway that they entered the room through. Reaching out, she tugged his shoulder, pulling his attention back to the door in front of them. “Ezra,” she whispered, suddenly horribly aware of the sound of footsteps on the duracrete ground outside, “I don’t have a pry-bar with me. Can you use the Force to get this door open?” The footsteps were getting louder. “Like, right now?”

Ezra was breathing shakily, short, sharp breaths that made his shoulders jump underneath her hand. “I — I — he’d feel it —”

The steps had begun to slow down, their owners clearly looking for a door. Sabine looked over her shoulder, suddenly remembering the dust that had coated the floor. The dust that was no doubt showing their footprints.

She swallowed. “He already knows we’re here,” she said, trying to sound kind. She’d heard Ezra’s interrogation back on Yavin. She understood why he feared the Fifth Brother so much, but she needed him to push past it if they were going to keep from being caught. “Ezra, if we’re to get out of here and away from them, we need to get this door open, and right now you’re the only one that can do it. You’ve survived him before, you’ve escaped him before, and you can do it again! You just need to open this door.”

There was a creak as someone large and heavy stepped inside of the building.

Underneath her hand, Ezra trembled. Then he took a deep breath, and stilled. 

The hairs on the back of Sabine’s neck rose.

The door in front of them groaned, and then began to slowly open.

And the Fifth Brother snarled from the building’s front door.

Sabine knew that it was the Fifth Brother from the electronic buzz underlying the sound. Whipping her head around, her hand plunged into her much-battered bag, grasping around the familiar shape of one of bombs she’d brought with her. She yanked it out and had it armed just in time, as the hulking figure of the Fifth Brother appeared, radiating rage.

She threw the bomb and turned back to the door. It was only halfway open, but that was enough for her and Ezra. Half picking him up, she hurled the two of them through just in front of the bomb’s blast.

She felt the heat through her boots anyways. The sound of the blast followed them through the doorway, filling her head as smoke filled the air and they hit the ground, bouncing a few times. 

Other than her feet and ears, though, she was fine. Staggering to her feet, she pulled Ezra with her, stuffing the light into her mouth for safekeeping. Ezra was stumbling, one of his legs dragging behind him as she tried to keep them moving.

Around her, the house groaned. Dilapidated as it was, the bomb had done nothing for its stability. Looking around, Sabine saw a window, the glass that had been in it before knocked out by the blast’s shockwave. There were no doors. Window it was, then.

She had just managed to get the two of them out as there was a loud snarl and a singed-smelling Fifth Brother smashed the door out of its frame.

Ezra whimpered, his fingers twisting in the cloth of her shirt as he tried to stand. Some gear in his leg was grinding audibly; glancing down, Sabine could see that his knee was seeming to refuse to fully extend. 

_Shit._

They were outside of the building now, and Sabine could more fully see the damage her bomb had caused. The building was listing now, clearly on the verge of collapse; parts of it already had, the roof above that had at least been straight if missing some chunks caving in on itself. There was no way that the supercommandos had missed any of that, and with Ezra’s leg there was no way that they’d be able to outrun them.

The Imperials had come in with at least one bike, though. If she could get to that…

Inside of the room, the Fifth Brother was still snarling that broken, buzzing sound that was his voice. 

“Come on!” Sabine snapped, pulling Ezra’s arm over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She began to run, dragging him along, as the building groaned above them. Dust and grit began to fall down on her head, forcing her to blink the dirt away. 

As they exited the little alley they’d jumped into, Sabine saw the bikes that the Imperials had been riding. Parked in a small circle in the middle of the road, there were four of them — more than enough. Sabine began to run towards them, Ezra being half-dragged —

There was a crack like a bone breaking. Behind them, the building groaned louder than ever, and even in the gloom, she could see a shift in the shadows on the ground.  
Abruptly, she threw herself and Ezra away from the bikes, just in time to avoid the building that they had just come out of crashing down on top of them. 

“Shit!” she hissed, scrambling back to her feet. Squinting through the dust, her ears ringing, her heart sank. In the rubble of the building, she could see the twisted frames of the bikes, clearly too damaged to work now. “Shit shit shit —”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Turning her head, she saw the agent, his face streaked with blood. He opened his mouth, shouting something that Sabine ignored, spinning on her heel to grab Ezra and keep running.

Then the ringing in her ears began to fade, and she heard the familiar roar of a jetpack.

She looked up just in time to see the wobbly blue energy of a stun blast just before it hit her and turned everything dark.

 


	10. An Honest Chat(s)

Sabine was alone in front of the Duchess’ Palace, like she had been so many times before. Painted in broad strokes of blue and white and gold, it was one of the few places in Imperial Sundari that had colour still.

That didn’t comfort her, however. No amount of colour could make the Duchesses’ Palace okay to her.

It was here that the worst of the Purge had taken place. Outside, where screaming civilians were dragged in front of firing squads with mechanical regularity, their bodies piled up until it was time to fill one of the many ditches dug outside of the city walls. And inside, where their crimes were figured out after their deaths and entered into the Empire’s records.

Cadet or no, Sabine had been too valuable to be out with the others, cracking open homes. She’d been kept inside, helping with the logistics of the slaughter. Inside; but not so far inside that she couldn’t hear the screaming.

She’d questioned one of her instructors when she was helping enter the crimes of the prisoners. One of the officers hadn’t had anything written down to explain why they had joined the piles outside.

She’d been told to make one up.

It had only gotten worse from there, too. Closing her eyes, Sabine could hear herself breathing raggedly as the memories rose up.

Finding out how the prisoners were caught. Her mother’s cool expression; Saxon’s fingers digging into her arms. The silence that had filled the hall as she was lead away…

She’d never told anyone about it. She tried not to think about it. But sometimes, during the ship’s sleep cycle, it would rise up, sticking to the inside of her skull like freighter oil…

She opened her eyes again, and suddenly she wasn’t alone anymore. She could feel people on either side of her, and behind her, but for some reason she wasn’t worried. They didn’t feel like the supercommandos that had surrounded her on the ship back to Sundari, all cold and disdainful. No, they felt warm, and reassuring.

Two large hands, armoured in black beskar’gam, settled on her shoulders. “Sabine Wren,” a deep, masculine voice said, warm and gentle like her father’s had been and Kanan’s was, “it’s time.”

Sabine opened her mouth to ask what was time, before abruptly finding herself facing away from the Palace and looking out over the square. She flinched back, her eyes expecting to see the red of blood and the piles of bodies that had filled it the last time she was on Mandalore —

But there was none of that. No dead bodies. No, the square was filled instead with the living. A massive crowd spread out in front of her as far as she could see, wearing brightly coloured armour — and they were cheering.

Instinctively, Sabine looked to her sides to see who they were celebrating, and gaped.

She’d only ever seen them in the old books that her family collected, or the art her father painted, but she knew exactly who the people standing on either side of her were. Any Mandalorian would have known who they were.

The Ka’ra. The Mand’alors, that had lead their people before the founding of the Republic. She could name them all — Mand’alor the Indomitable, Mand’alor the Uniter, Mand’alor the Preserver, the Vindicated, the Destroyer, the Binder the Ultimate the Hammerborn the Avenger — and they were lined up on either side of her, with her in the middle.

The crowd only cheered louder as she turned back to them, shouting and waving their hands in the air. There were people in the buildings, too, that she could now see, similarly cheering, and a few people were flying through the air.

She didn’t understand this. Sabine looked on either side of her again. It made sense that the people would cheer at the sight of their ancient leaders, but why were they cheering even louder whenever she looked at them as well?

“Sabine Wren.” The man with his hands on her shoulders spoke again. “It is time,” he repeated.

She turned, and gasped.

The distinctive black helmet of Tarre Viszla, the Last Mand’alor, met her eyes. Taking a step back, she began to babble. “I — I —”

The man — the Last Mand’alor — just chuckled, like she was his daughter and had just done something cute. Reaching up, he lifted his helmet from his head, revealing his face.

It was a handsome face. Unfamiliar; most art of the man emphasized his armour and role as leader of the Mandalorian people, allowing the man himself to disappear underneath it all. He held his helmet — the last known iteration of the ancient Mask of Mand’alor — in front of him, its dark paint nearly blending in with the rest of his armour except for the deep red T-shaped visor. Dirty blond hair was pulled back into a topknot, revealing high tanned cheekbones and a thick, well-trimmed beard that failed to hide his smile. And his eyes…

They were full of stars.

Like a starfield, they glittered, the points of light slowly moving as Sabine stared up at him, radiating age and strangely, life.

“Lord Mandalore!” she finally managed to get out, stumbling back a few more steps. “What —”

The corners of his eyes crinkling with laugh-lines, Tarre Viszla raised a single finger to his lips. “Soon,” he said, his voice soothing and warm. “But first…” He raised his helmet, turning it so the visor faced him, and stepped towards her.

Sabine’s eyes darted around, and she realized that Tarre was not the only one to remove his helmet. All of the other Mand’alors had removed their helmets as well, and had turned to watch her. Their eyes were starfields as well, glittering, and they too were smiling, even the ones that were known for their sternness…

“Sabine Wren,” he said, raising his helmet even higher, “the Liberator.”

The crowd roared, and the helmet slipped down over her head.

* * *

Sabine’s eyes snapped open.

What the hell was that? Her heart was pounding in her chest as her mind spun in circles. The crowds, Tarre Viszla but with strange starry eyes, and he was lowering his own helmet on top of her head as the rest of the Ka’ra looked on —

“You’re awake. Good.”

Sabine jumped and tried to push herself up off the ground. Her hands didn’t cooperate, metal cuffs digging into her wrists. The mystery of the dream abruptly fell away, memories screaming to the forefront of her mind — of the running, and being chased, and the stunblast that had put her down. The dream, strange as it was — and since when did getting stunned make her dream? — was quickly pushed to the back of her mind in favour of figuring out who had just spoken. She thought she knew, but just in case she twisted and craned her head towards the sound.

The blank helmet of a supercommmando met her eyes, and she flinched, her stomach sinking.

She’d been right. There had been a hollow distortion to the voice, but she had hoped —

“I hope you’re happy,” the supercommando continued, his voice bitter. “I’m not sure if you remember, but you managed to destroy all four of our bikes with your bomb in that house. Until we manage to raise someone on the surface we’re stuck down here.”

Well, that was more than she had been expecting. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she snarked, trying to sound brave. This was bad, but she hadn’t been executed while unconcious, so she had a chance. Maybe some prodding would get her some information. “Not sure what you were expecting, though — you were hunting me and Ezra down.” Mock-lazily looking around, she jabbed, “Where is he, by the way? Grabbing a kid with a bum leg too hard for a bucket-head these days?”

The room that she was in was covered in dust like the first house she and Ezra had run into. The furniture was similarly covered in sheets and scattered around the room, thin slit windows set into the wall. One of them, the one that was closest, had a tall thin lantern set into it that was letting out a dim yellow light that was struggling to fill the room. It flickered a little as she looked at it, sending shadows skittering across the dull white armor of the supercommando like shadowy fingers. Behind him lay a shadow-filled doorway, no doubt leading deeper into the house.

She could feel the supercommando’s glare through his bucket. “He,” he said coldly, “is with the Inquisitor.”

Sabine couldn’t keep herself from stiffening, her stomach sinking. From the way the supercommando’s head cocked slightly, she knew that the movement had been noticed.

“Worried?” The supercommando’s voice was oddly bitter. “I’m surprised. Out of sight, out of mind seems more your style.”

Her stomach churning with worry, she glared at the supercommando. “Oh, because you know me so very well,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

“Yes, actually,” the supercommando said, reaching up to his helmet and pulling it off with a jerky, angry movement, “I do.”

Sabine’s breath caught in her throat.

Her little brother, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth twisted in a frown, stared down at her with hate in his eyes. “Hello, ori’vod.”

“Tristan,” she breathed. She had thought that her stomach was already sinking into the floor before, but now it was speeding down to the core of the planet. “What are you — ?”

“Someone had to take your place when you ran away.” The bitterness in his voice was a tangible thing, bitter and sticky and black. “Or did you think that Mother allowed you to go with the Viceroy in the first place for laughs?”

Sabine slowly shook her head. “You — you’re too young to be a supercommando,” she denied.

“Not according to Viceroy Saxon,” Tristan spat.

“Stars, I’m so sorry —”

“Sorry doesn’t change what happened.”

At that, Sabine fell silent. He wasn’t wrong. Seeing her brother in that white and red armour, so close to the traditional beskar and yet so far — it sent an instinctual shudder of revulsion through her.

That was probably the point though, she thought grimly. It marked her brother as property of the Empire just as surely as the tattoo on the back of Ezra’s neck. A hostage for their mother’s good behaviour; if she slipped up, no doubt Tristan would die tragically but heroically in some ambush against the Resistance.

Shifting, she managed to get her knees underneath her so that she could sit up. “You’re right,” she finally said, blowing some hair out of her eyes and not looking directly at him. “It doesn’t make it okay, either. But I didn’t do it for fun, Tristan. I left the Empire for a reason.”

“What reason is more important than your family?! Your Clan!?” Tristan snapped back.

“Not being responsible for the murder of even more Mandalorians?” someone said in a very dry tone.

Sabine snapped her head around. Now that she was more awake, the distortion of the helmet’s speakers wasn’t so hard for her to parse. “Ketsu?”

More white armour emerged from the shadows of the doorway, revealing a female supercommando. With a flick of the wrist, the helmet came off, revealing the girl that had been her best friend, a wry smile twisting her lips. “Sabine,” she said, nodding towards her as she tucked her helmet under her arm. “Been a while.”

Sabine’s breath stuttered in her chest at the confirmation. “…You too?”

The smile twisted a little more. Ketsu sighed, and looked away before leaning up against the wall. “You know I don’t have a clan. Every other branch in the Empire, you need an in. A family member. The supercommandos were the only ones that I could get into with just my Academy marks.”

“Still…” Sabine looked down at her lap. “You talked about becoming a bounty hunter too.”

Ketsu shrugged. “The Academy got clamped down on hard after you left. Just slipping away stopped being an option.”

“It should never have been an option in the first place,” Tristan said, his voice icy.

Ketsu snorted, turning her head to look at him. The twist to her lips was no longer one of wry fondness, as it had been as she looked at Sabine. Now it was vicious and cold, filled with disgust for the person she was looking at. “Did those explosives blow out your damned eardrums, Wren? She didn’t leave because she was bored or something, she left because —”

“I know why she left!” Tristan snapped. He ducked his head, staring down at his helmet angrily. “I’m not an idiot, I was there when the Viceroy took her back! That doesn’t change the fact that she’s the reason our clan is in the situation it’s in!”

“Your mother is the reason your clan’s in the situation it’s in!” Ketsu snapped back. “She’s the one that hitched you all to the Viceroy in the name of power — if you want to blame anyone blame her!”

Tristan stood up abruptly. He towered over Sabine — stars, when had he gotten so tall, he’d been a head shorter than her when she had first left Krowsnest — and glared menacingly at Ketsu, who didn’t flinch. “She did what any clan leader would do,” he spat. “She acted to improve our standing and power and to protect us from the Empire as best she could!”

“Yeah, and all she had to pay for it was her daughter,” Ketsu snarled back, pushing herself off of the wall. “I suppose for a stone-cold bitch like Countess Ursa, it was a bargain.”

Tristan’s face had already flushed with anger when he had stood up, but now it purpled. “You —”

“Wren. Onyo.” A cold, Core-accented voice snapped from the door. “Is there a problem here?”

Both of them snapped their mouths shut so fast that their teeth clicked. “No, Agent Kallus,” Ketsu spoke first. “Just a small disagreement.”

“I’m sure,” the Agent drawled. His brown eyes flicked down to Sabine.

She’d stilled as the argument had begun. Out of instinct, she’d known that this was an old argument, bitter like burned caf at the bottom of the pot. With the Agent’s cold eyes on her, though, she shifted uncomfortably.

After what felt like an age, the blond man’s eyes finally looked away. “Wren. You had a chance to look Miss Sabine over?”

Tristan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “She’s fine,” he said curtly. “Just some scrapes and bruises, as far as I can tell.”

“Good,” the agent said. “In that case, if you and Onyo wouldn’t mind continuing to work on the bikes while I look at young Bridger, that would be much appreciated.”

His tone made it abundantly clear that it was not a suggestion. Both Ketsu and Tristan straightened and nodded. “Yes sir,” Tristan went so far as to say.

The Agent simply nodded and left the doorway, clearly expecting them to do just that. Ketsu did, but Tristan lingered, looking Sabine over with his lips pressed tightly together.

Sabine looked back at him, unable to summon much emotion. The argument that had played out in front of her and the memories that it had dredged up — they had scraped the inside of her chest until it felt hollow.

Tristan looked away first. “Mother —” he began, and then hesitated. “Mother cried, after they took you. Both times.” He stared down at his feet. “I heard her through the door.”

Sabine’s eyes didn’t move from his form. “I guessed that,” she said quietly. Looking back in the first days of her flight from the Empire, she had been able to see the small tells of her mother’s discomfort in her memories. The hum of the Ghost’s engines had not been loud enough to drown out the way her mother’s jaw had clenched when she had first begged to go to the Academy; nor the way her eyes had widened as Sabine had walked down the ramp of her stolen ship, the first time she had run away. “That doesn’t make her giving me back to the Empire okay, though.”

Just like their mother, Tristan’s jaw clenched. Then he was gone, back into the darkness, leaving Sabine alone with just the dim lantern for company.

Leaning back against the wall, Sabine closed her eyes and swallowed back the tears that had begun to burn in her eyes.

That…had not been as bad as she’d thought it would be. It hadn’t even been as bad as when she had first fled the Empire. So why did it make her chest hurt that much more?

She wished that she could go back. Back to when she was a little girl, and her mother was the strongest person in the galaxy to her. When her mother could protect her from anyone and anything.

But she couldn’t. Those days were long gone, and her mother, even if she had cried, still hadn’t even tried to protest the Viceroy taking her back.

No, it had been Kanan and Hera and Zeb that had protected her then. The memory of Kanan appearing to her at her lowest point made the pain in her chest lessen. She’d been standing by one of the many piles of corpses that had been stacked up like firewood, her blaster underneath her chin, when Kanan had appeared and pulled the blaster away.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Sabine pushed the memories away. She pushed the thoughts away as well.

She didn’t have time for this. She’d just been left alone, and she’d never have a better chance to get out of her binds and rescue Ezra. She opened her eyes. It was time to focus.

“I agree,” a voice from beside her murmured.

Sabine jumped, whipping her head around —

And saw a set of star-filled eyes in the shadows of the doorway. Eyes that seemed to get bigger and bigger, filling her gaze until all she could see was those points of light and the darkness between where she could float…

* * *

Ezra woke slowly to an aching head and the taste of ozone in his mouth.

 _What — what happened?_ he wondered groggily, trying to force his eyes open. _Why —_

Then the memories hit him like a bolt of lightning. The bomb, running, then those Imps with their blasters set to stun —

Ezra tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Pain lanced through his head, the taste of ozone getting stronger. This was why he hated getting stunned — it always took so long to recover and get back on his feet.

“You’re awake,” a low voice with an odd, looping accent and a harsh mechanical undertone said. “Good.”

Trying to reach up to rub at his head, Ezra first noticed that his hands were cuffed. Then he noticed the hulking figure that the voice had come from and froze.

His mouth was now covered by an odd mask, and the light from the glowrods set around the room was dim, but Ezra would never forget those pale, unseeing eyes that nevertheless always knew where he was. He’d known the moment that he’d seen them in the raid, charging forward. “Fifth Brother.”

The eyes curved slightly in a smile, and the hulking alien stood up. Ezra tried to scramble to his feet, but his leg refused to properly move and he just ended up crashing to the ground again as the Inquisitor drew closer.

Lazily, the Fifth Brother reached down and wrapped a large hand around Ezra’s neck. Automatically, Ezra froze, his breath suddenly having trouble getting into his lungs. It wasn’t quite a chokehold; if it had Ezra knew from experience that he wouldn’t have been breathing at all. It was a reminder of the terrible strength that was in the Inquisitor’s limbs, and the many times that it had stopped his breathing altogether.

Those memories began to roar upwards like a tide as he was dragged to his feet, his toes barely skimming the floor as the Fifth Brother straightened.

The Seventh Sister…he hadn’t understood her relationship with the Fifth Brother. They were rivals, all Inquisitors were, but she often invited him to either watch or join in when she was — was hurting him. They constantly traded insults, but more than once he’d caught the unmistakable stench of sex coming off of Seven after she came back from a ‘meeting’ with him. The one time he commented on it, though…

“I do not understand why the Grand Inquisitor wants you back so badly,” the Fifth Brother commented idly, like he was just chatting with Ezra and not holding him off the ground and half-strangling him. “Your connection with the Force is strong but you are too weak to take advantage of it. You cling to the Light,” he sneered at the word, “and reject the strength the Dark offers. Reject the advantages that you are offered.” His grip tightened.

He was back there, helpless, unable to fight back — no. No, he reminded himself, screwing up his courage, he wasn’t back at the Academy. He wasn’t some helpless child. He had panicked before, realizing who exactly was after him and Sabine, but that didn’t mean that he had to panic now.

“O-oh, yeah?” Ezra gasped out. “Advantages like what, g-getting tortured? Getting r-raped? I can do without, thanks.”

The Fifth Brother growled low in his chest, his hand squeezing and cutting off Ezra’s air entirely. “The advantage of being on the winning side of this war,” he snarled. “The advantage of a high position, without having to work for it. A position so high that your betters are forced to die or be *crippled* to save you from your weakness.”

Ezra struggled to breath, what little courage he’d managed to scrape together quickly fleeing. His betters — was he talking about Kanan killing the Seventh Sister, and whatever had happened to him to make his voice all buzzy like that?

The Fifth Brother pulled him close, so close that their faces were nearly touching. “Lord Sidious’ wrath was great, after he heard of our loss of the Academy thanks to you. He made sure that survivors knew that wrath.”

Grey began to creep in at the edges of Ezra’s vision.

“If I had any freedom in this matter, you would not leave this planet alive,” the Inquisitor said in a low voice. “I would repay you for the pain that your weakness put me through a thousand times over.”

He then abruptly dropped Ezra to the ground. Ezra hit it hard, his frozen leg sending pain shooting up through hip that just made him gasp that much harder for air.

“Unfortunately,” the Fifth Brother growled, “I do not have a say in such things. For some reason, the Grand Inquisitor still wishes to make you a member of the Inquisitorius. Remember that, when I bring you to him.”

Coughing and wishing he could rub his throat, Ezra glared at him, despite knowing that the alien could probably feel the fear coming off of him in the Force. “W-wow, thanks,” he snarked in a raspy voice, “that almost makes up for you helping the Seventh Sister —”

The familiar feeling of the back of the Inquisitor’s hand slamming into his face silenced him. The force of the blow sent him sliding across the ground until he smacked into something.

“INQUISITOR!” someone roared. A pair of hands were suddenly on Ezra’s shoulders, helping him sit up as his ears rang from the force of the blow. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

His head spinning, Ezra only heard the Fifth Brother snarl in reply and stomp away, the floor vibrating underneath Ezra.

“I will be reporting this!” the person that had helped him sit up shouted after the big alien. Then he snarled himself. He had a Core accent. Ezra wondered at that.

The hands shifted, moving him so that he was leaning up against a wall. Blinking away the black specks that had been dancing across his vision, Ezra watched a face with the oddest facial hair appear in front of him. The agent.

“Ezra Bridger, can you hear me?” The agent’s voice was weirdly gentle. Way more gentle than it had been on Lothal, when he’d looked at Ezra like he was a piece of tooka shit that he’d stepped in.

Ezra didn’t say any of that out loud, thankfully. Instead, he said, “Whaaaat?” like a child that had been woken from a nap.

The agent let out a relieved sigh. Ezra felt a hand clad in a leather glove tip his chin up. The light in the room increased somehow, making Ezra’s eyes water. He tried to blink the tears away as the agent manipulated his head, clucking quietly in anger.

“— cannot believe that he did that, I don’t what he was thinking,” the agent was muttering. Something moved in front of Ezra’s eyes and he followed it for a moment before he realized that it was one of the agent’s fingers. “He’s lucky that I thought to pack a medpack.”

Ezra blinked some more. Okay, seriously, what was with this concern? His sight was clearing now, and he could see that the lantern he’d spotted when he woke up had been moved closer. The black-clad agent had turned away from him, the medpack that he’d spoken of open in front of him. Ezra could see that he’d already pulled out painkillers, and the wide bacta bandages that were meant for bruises. Sure, Ezra could feel the soreness in his cheek from where the Fifth Brother had struck him, but really? Bacta for what was probably just going to be a vivid bruise? And from an Imperial?

“I will definitely be reporting this to his superiors,” the agent was continuing to grumble as he turned back to Ezra, one of the bandages in his gloved hand.

Ezra couldn’t help but chuckle at that, making the agent look up at him. “Seriously?” Ezra said, unable to keep himself from talking. “Believe me, that’s not the hardest he’s ever hit me, agent. I mean, I’m still conscious. You’re better off saving your breath.”

The agent’s head snapped up. “I beg your pardon?”

Ezra snorted at the look of shock on his face. Really? “What, do you think that the Inquisitorius is full of hugs and kisses? Why do you think I was running away from you?”

The hand that was holding the bandage clenched, crumpling it. “The Empire — the Committee —”

It was most likely — well, more like almost definitely the head injury, but Ezra pinned the agent with a look. “Would never allow such things? Are you a binary droid? The Inquisitorius doesn’t answer to them.” He looked away. “The Inquisitorius doesn’t answer to anyone.”

The agent was silent for a long time. Long enough for Ezra to feel the throb of his cheekbone.

“You were a cadet,” he finally said. “A cadet of the Empire. There are certain protections —”

“Oh my god,” Ezra groaned, rolling his eyes. “You believe that poodoo?”

“You are pushed, yes, but not to the point —”

Ezra turned and looked at the agent again. He almost — almost — felt sorry for him. From the way his cheeks were reddening and muttonchops were bristling, Ezra had the feeling that he really did believe what was spewing from his mouth. Mostly, though, Ezra just suddenly felt very tired. “Seriously, what did they even tell you to make you surprised by this?”

The agent pursed his lips and didn’t answer right away. Instead, he smoothed out the crumpled bandage in his hand. Guiding Ezra’s head to the side, he peeled off the back of the bandage and applied it, the cool bacta tingling as it began to work.

Ezra could feel his uncertainty, even through his shields.

“…You and your fellow cadets in the Inquisitorius were kidnapped six months ago in a joint operation by the Republican Remnant and the Jedi Order,” he finally said as he smoothed the last corner down. “It is theorized that the Jedi and the Rebels intended to co-opt you and the other cadets into the Jedi Order so that they can take a more aggressive stance in the war.”

“…What?” Ezra asked flatly. “And you seriously believed that?”

The agent stiffened. “Excuse me?”

It wasn’t the smart thing to do; as far as Ezra knew, the agent was the only person here besides Sabine that was actually concerned for him. But after waking up to the Fifth Brother, nearly getting choked out, and getting belted across the face before being forced to listen to this poodoo, Ezra’s patience was officially at an end.

“You were there when I was taken by the Grand Inquisitor,” he said, his voice staying flat. “You saw how he treated me. How he had to have Mister Sumar _lure_  me out to his farm. How he nearly broke my arm, holding me in place.” He was biting off his words, cold anger coiling in his gut and the old buzz of the loth-wasp hive in his chest starting up again. “What in that made you think that the Inquisitors were going to take good care of me?”

The agent still had a hand on Ezra’s chin. He could feel the fine tremor in it as the agent stared at him. His throat worked as he audibly swallowed.

After a long silence, the agent broke their gaze first. “Sabine Wren is fine as well,” he said, ignoring Ezra’s question. He rifled through the medpack, his shoulders set stiffly.

“Sabine —” Ezra coughed, his throat giving a twinge of pain at his sudden increase in volume. God, between the Fifth Brother and the poodoo spilling from the agent’s mouth, he hadn’t even thought to ask about her!

“Considering her resistance earlier, she is being held separately from you,” the agent said, continuing to rummage through the medpack. Ezra was beginning to suspect that he was doing it more to keep his hands busy than any real need to retrieve something from it. “She will, however, be brought back with us.”

Ezra eyed the agent. “For what?” he asked. “Execution?”

The agent’s hand stilled, and he shot another one of those looks at Ezra. “I beg your —” He stopped and squeezed his eyes shut. Giving up on his rummaging, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Sabine Wren,” he said finally, “is — was, an Imperial cadet, kidnapped by rebels during the Grand Inquisitor’s efforts to put down the Fifth Mandalorian Uprising, due to her role in creating and developing the programs and technology that allowed us to track them down. The last thing the Empire wants is to execute her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Waits excitedly for everyone's reaction*


	11. Starry-Eyed

Kandal Vron, Kanan was realizing, was a very stubborn man. Like a train, once he had gotten onto a topic, he refused to be turned aside and simply continued barreling forward, smashing through any obstacle in his way.

“You’re not answering me. I am sympathetic to your need to retrieve your younger crew members, but why won’t you contact your masters and allow us make sure that you actually have Aji? We’re taking a big risk —”

Kanan couldn’t restrain a groan. “We’ve already told you —”

But Hera beat him to the punch. “We told you what happened to us. We were lured into a trap; a trap that was set up on what should have been a secure line of communication. Until we know how that happened, we can’t risk using our usual comms channels.”

Vron scrubbed at his dark face. “I understand that,” he said, his voice falsely calm. “But you don’t understand just how tense things are between the Empire and the Great Houses.”

“Then explain,” Hera said, folding her hands in front of her. “We aren’t mind readers — well, most of us. If you don’t explain, then we won’t understand.”

From where he was sitting in his large wooden chair, Zeb grunted. They were all gathered in the living room of the ship, with the holographic table for briefings and games and a couch for Hera and Kanan to sit on. A stool had been dug up out of storage for Vron, and he was perched on its edge, nearly vibrating with tension. 

The man scrubbed at his face again. “House Rau used to be very close to House Viszla,” he finally said after a long pause. “When the Last Mand’alor claimed his title, House Rau was one of the first to recognize his authority. More recently, however…” He shook his head. “Alor Rau never agreed with Pre Viszla, or his Deathwatch. The Viceroy used to be one of Viszla’s supercommandos, before he joined up with the Empire.”

“So it’s an old grudge?” Kanan asked, cocking his head to one side. 

Vron surprisingly shook his head. “It’s not just that. The Viceroy — he disgusts all of the Heads. He pretends that he never was with Deathwatch, and pants after the power that Empire deigns to give him while lording over everyone else. He forces us to give up our children, our culture —” He stopped, making a disgusted noise. “And he acts as if those of us that remember what it means to be a Mandalorian are artifacts. Alor never made his disdain for Mandalorians of Saxon’s ilk a secret, and the hatred is returned entirely.”

Kanan narrowed his eyes, parsing Vron’s words. “So, a grudge mixed with real anger over your people being sold out.”

Vron sighed. “You make it sound so petty.”

“No one’s making light of it,” Hera said. “We know what the Empire does to the planets in its grip.”

“Then you should know what it’s already done to Mandalore,” Vron pointed out. His head had dipped as he explained the tension between Rau and Saxon, but it rose again to reveal burning eyes. “You have to have heard of the Uprisings, and how the last one was put down.”

“Didn’t just hear about it,” Zeb rumbled from his seat. “We ended up caught here while it was going on. Ended up needing inside help to escape.”

Vron stiffened. “Who — never mind. Then you know why my alor is so hesitant to commit ourselves to this. You can imagine how quickly the Viceroy would jump on this chance to rid himself of a hated enemy.”

All of them nodded, even as the caution made Kanan drum his fingers on the table. 

“We do understand,” Hera said, not breaking eye contact with the man even as she placed a hand over Kanan’s to still the movement. “But if you wouldn’t mind listening to us, maybe you can come to understand why we’re so eager to have your help.”

Vron didn’t reply, but his eyes glittered.

Hera spoke, her voice confident. “We told you that we knew why your Aji was taken, but we haven’t shared that reason yet, have we?” A lek, hidden behind her back, twitched. “Let me tell you a story.”

And she did. Hera spoke of finding Ezra in the bowels of a star destroyer, chained and muzzled like an animal. Of finding out that he was being sent to the Grand Inquisitor as his new apprentice — and Kanan didn’t doubt that she too saw Vron’s flinch at the man’s title. Of calming him down and finding out about the others that had been left behind when Ezra had ‘graduated’. Of the assault on the Academy of Dromund Kaas, and all that had been found within it.

Kanan noted that she didn’t mention how Aji had been injured by the Inquisitors, but supposed that such a tangent would have distracted from the point she was driving at. Hearing what the Inquisitorius had had planned for Ezra — surely Vron would understand their desperation to get him back. Not just out of sentimentality, but strategically as well.

As Hera’s story came to an end, Vron was very still. Halfway through, one dark hand had floated up to cover his mouth; it didn’t move as she fell silent.

“You understand, then, why it’s so important that we get Ezra back?” Hera’s voice was kind, but there was a layer of steel beneath it. “If we don’t get him back, all of your precautions won’t matter. They’ll have someone capable of ripping all of your secrets out of your head. And Sabine is a child, who barely escaped the Empire in the first place. They won’t be kind to her.”

Vron was silent for a long time. As she had spoken, a hand had come up, covering his mouth as he stared down at his lap. 

Kanan felt a sympathy at his horror. He’d only known Ezra for a month before finding out what the Inquisitorius had done to him and he’d wanted to crawl inside a bottle. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if he’d watched Ezra grow up.

His hand still covering his mouth, Vron squeezed his eyes shut, clearly thinking. “It would still be an enormous risk to sneak you into the Imperial headquarters with us,” he finally said.

Zeb sighed explosively. 

Not opening his eyes, Vron raised a hand before any of them could say anything more. “However,” he said, “however, I cannot see my alor doing anything but helping you. We’ve been searching for over a year and you’re the first to offer any information at all, let alone telling us that you have him safe.”

Kanan leaned forward in his seat. “So you’ll help us then?”

Vron lowered his hand, his mouth thinning until it was nothing more than a bloodless line as he opened his eyes. “Yes,” he said heavily. “We will.”

“You sure you can just agree to this without running it past your boss?” Zeb asked. “I don’t want us to get halfway into this only to find out that your boss wants nothing to do with this.”

Vron shook his head. “No,” he said, “Aji was — is — the last bit of Clan Rau alor has. His sister’s son. He already feels guilty enough for allowing the Empire to take him the first time. He would never let this chance to put things to right pass him by.” The hand he had lowered drummed nervously on the table. 

Kanan watched the dark fingers tap for a second before glancing back at the man’s face. “You have more questions.” It wasn’t a question. 

The other man opened his mouth. Closed it. Bit his lower lip. “…Aji,” he finally said, “that boy — Bridger — what you said about what he went through at the hands of the Inquisitorius…what did they do to Aji?”

Now it was Kanan’s turn to drum his fingers. On either side of him, Hera and Zeb were stock still.

Hera was the one to finally answer his question. “Are you sure that you want to hear?”

Vron’s lips had softened while he spoke. Now they tightened again as he nodded. 

Hera sighed. “I’m not one hundred percent sure on what happened to him before the rescue mission,” she warned, “so I have to assume it’s similar to what happened to Ezra.”

Vron’s knuckles went white.

“During the rescue mission, however,” Hera continued reluctantly, “there was an…incident. An Inquisitor managed to get past several of our people in an attempt to stop the children from escaping. One of the Jedi Order’s Knights tried to stop him but was knocked back. When Aji saw that…” She sighed. “He tried to pick up the fallen Knight’s lightsaber and hold him off. Unfortunately, though, lightsabers are not an easy weapon to wield.”

Kanan could see her eyes dart over to him. Underneath the table, he reached over and squeezed her knee supportively. He’d heard this story after the rescue, while he was helping Ezra recover from losing his leg. It was hard to miss the child in one of the bacta tubes lining the far end of the med bay, after all. “The Inquisitor defeated him almost instantly, and nearly gutted him with his own lightsaber,” he supplied. “Aji was lucky that the Knight he’d tried to replace was a trained Healer. She managed to stabilize him long enough to get him back to base.”

Vron swallowed audibly. “Is he…?”

Kanan shrugged a little. “My focus was on Ezra,” he said honestly. “He lost a leg to the Inquisitors during the raid, and needed to recover from that. As near as I know, however, he’s mostly recovered. Still gets some pains sometimes — Ezra and him talked about it a few times — and apparently he’s down a couple of inches of his intestines, but as far as I know he’s okay. Still needs some more treatment, so he hangs out a lot in the med bay, but —” He shrugged again “He’s out of the woods.”

The other man blinked, clearly fighting back his emotions. “Down a couple of inches of his intestines,” he said. “Right. Just a few inches.” He shook his head, staring down at his lap. 

Hera leaned foward, placing her own green hand over one of his pale-knuckled ones. “The Resistance and the Jedi dote on these children,” she said quietly. “He’s been through a lot, yes, but he’s in a safe place now. If we don’t get Ezra and Sabine back, though, that might change.”

Vron chuckled wetly. “All business, aren’t you?” He shook his head again, running his free hand over it before looking up at them. “We’ll need to come up with a plan, then.”

“You have anything in particular in mind?” Zeb asked. 

The man visibly pulled himself together, his brow furrowing. “Like I said when I first came here, the only people watched closer than us are actual prisoners. The fact that we’ll be going into Imperial headquarters here only increases the difficulty.” He wiggled his jaw in thought. 

“You made it here, though,” Zeb pointed out.

Vron dismissed the point with a wave of his hand. “Only because they were busy keeping an eye on my alor after last night,” he said. “Meetings between the Heads? Very suspicious. Makes it easier for one of their underlings to slip away.”

“And maybe easier for one more to slip back in?” Kanan suggested. He’d played the part of underling before, it would be no great stretch to do so again. “Then when we go to the headquarters, I’m just another face in his entourage?”

Vron shook his head. “Unfortunately, alor’s entourage has been pruned. We were informed that he’d only be allowed three of us to accompany him to headquarters. We’ll be allowed our armor, but nothing else. Not even a holdout blaster. And alor was directly forbidden from wearing his.”

Hera frowned. “He needed to be directly forbidden?”

Vron’s smile held no joy. “Way the Viceroy goes on and on about making Mandalore great again, you’d think he’d have us tromping around, don’t you?” He laughed bitterly. “Honestly, I’m surprised even we were allowed our armour. He’s made it clear that he wants our beskar associated with the Empire. Letting us wander around with it would be sending the wrong message.”

He leaned back in his chair, smoothing a hand over his scalp. “I suppose it was precisely because of the way he goes on about making Mandalore great again. Not really a good slogan if you’re doing away with everything that outwardly makes us Mandalorian.” He was still smiling bitterly. “Can rot away all the innards, but stars forbid we don’t at least look the part.”

Kanan stroked his chin. “Still, that’s an in,” he said. “Do you know if they’ll make you take your helmet off to get in?”

Vron glanced over at him. “You want to wear my armour to get in.”

Kanan shrugged and gestured to him. “We look to be built about the same,” he said, “and we already checked. Imps have to show ID and all the servants have already been hired, so there’s no sneaking in that way. Our best plan before finding you was stealing some Imperial’s credentials and slicing our way in from a public terminal. If we can get in directly, though…” He trailed off meaningfully. 

Seeing the discomfort on the other man’s face, Hera jumped back in. “We told you that we have a Mandalorian in our crew. We know how important your armour is, culturally, and don’t ask for it lightly. However, like Kanan says, we’re a little short on other ways in.”

Vron shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said honestly. “If it meant getting our Aji back, I know that any of us would let you wear it. Hell, alor would probably let you throw his into a slag furnace. I’m more nervous about leaving my alor short a defender, that’s all.”

“You’re expecting trouble then?” Zeb asked.

Again, Vron shook his head. “No, not precisely,” he said. “All the Great Houses together, I doubt Saxon’s going to try anything. Just…walking in there, it’s like going into the monster’s den. You want someone you know and trust on your six.”

“But we don’t have a better way in,” Hera said gently. “And all the armour in the world can’t protect you if the Inquisitors get their High Interrogator back.”

He sighed explosively. “I know,” he said wearily. “I know.” He rubbed his face. “Just…don’t expect me to be jumping for joy here.”

“Hey,” Kanan said, feeling a little sympathy twist through his gut for the man, “think about it this way. Now, along with two Mando warriors, your chief is going to have a Jedi at his back. If anything, that’s better than just three straight warriors.”

That startled a bark of laughter from the man. “Really? You’re saying that to a Mandalorian?” 

“I’m just saying,” Kanan said, raising his arms, “I’m just saying. Sometimes it’s nice to have a psychic at your back.”

Vron was still laughing, but it wasn’t a bitter sound. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “Hopefully you’ll be able to sniff out any treachery from the Imps. But before we get into an argument about that — we need to figure out when you’ll be changing into my armour. The hotel’s being watched, remember?”

* * *

The agent kept trying to talk to Ezra as he finished up treating him, but Ezra didn’t reply. He couldn’t; not while his mind was chewing over what the agent had told him.   
Sabine — making weapons for the Empire? That couldn’t be right. That couldn’t — the agent had to be lying. 

But he’d sounded so certain, saying it. Biting the inside of his cheek, Ezra turned over the agents words in his head for the hundredth time, trying to find a flaw in them.

Certainly, Sabine had to be smart enough to do what the agent was accusing her of doing. She was brilliant, smart enough to be trusted with decoding vital Imperial transmissions that no one else could — the data dump that had revealed his identity as the newest High Interrogator stood as testament to that. Something like creating a tracking program that jumped from comm to comm couldn’t have been anywhere near as hard as that. 

But this was Sabine! None of that fitted with what Ezra knew of her. She was someone who loved her people and their history; the way that she’d talked of them while they were walking was proof enough. The way she talked about the Purges, too — there was no way that she would have willingly helped the Empire do what they had done to Mandalore. 

And yet, the agent…

Stars, what was he doing?! Ezra clenched his jaw and pushed away that thought firmly again. What did the agent know? He thought that Ezra was an Imperial cadet and that he was rescuing him from the Resistance! 

Yeah, he had to be wrong. He just had to be. He didn’t know a thing about Sabine. Breathing in and out through his nose, he calmed himself like Kanan had showed him. 

He could get out of this. It wasn’t over.

“Alright,” the agent said, smoothing the edge of one last bacta bandage, “that should do for now.” Standing up, he smoothed his uniform and put his gloves back on, the leather audibly creaking. “The doctors will no doubt further check you once we return to the surface but for now that should keep you comfortable.” Reaching down, he closed up the medkit and picked it up off the ground. “If you feel any more pain —”

Ezra quirked an eyebrow up at him and interrupted. “You’re leaving?” 

The agent’s mouth twisted. “Unfortunately, it seems that the squad that was put together here requires supervision. I assure you, however — you are my focus here. If you require help, just ask. Any one of us will be happy to assist you.” His features smoothed for a second, then quirked in fake amusement. “Well, maybe not the Inquisitor.”

Ezra didn’t laugh. “And Sabine?” He took the risk of adding a demanding edge to his question; this guy was so deluded, he figured that his chances of getting something other than another blow to the face was actually more than one percent.

The amusement dropped instantly. “In a separate room,” he said, the stiffness instantly returning to his voice. “As sympathetic as I am to her situation, I believe it best if you are kept apart at the moment.”

It was Ezra’s turn to twist his lips. “You believe it best? Who exactly put you in charge of that?”

The agent just sighed. “You’ll understand later,” he said in the airy tone of a put-upon parent.

It made Ezra’s lip curl.

Turning, the agent left, disappearing into the darkness outside of the room. 

Sighing, Ezra leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He needed to focus, he told himself sternly. He could ask Sabine about what the agent had said later, once they were out of here.

And the first step was getting out of these cuffs. 

Carefully, he tested them, tugging. They held fast, with none of the little squeaks that spoke of age or weakness. They weren’t quite tight around his wrists, but neither were they loose, meaning that just dislocating a thumb and slipping his hand out was straight out.

Maybe if he got his hands in front of him, he could get a better idea of his options? He squirmed, leaning against the wall and trying to raise his butt so that he could slip his hands under and around.

He was so focused on getting his hands in front of him without dislocating his shoulders that he nearly missed the room suddenly getting a little brighter. He’d had his eyes squeezed shut in concentration when he’d opened them briefly, trying to blink away some sweat, and noticed the golden light. Alarm shot up his spine and he whipped his head around — 

“Sabine!” Ezra choked out, barely remembering to keep his voice low. 

There, in the doorway and holding a small lantern, was Sabine with her bag slung over her shoulder. Her lantern, dim as it was, didn’t cast enough light to fully illuminate her face and left her eyes in shadow, but Ezra recognized her anyway.

Silently, she raised a finger to her lips, shushing him. Crossing the room quickly, her feet seeming to glide over the dust and debris that littered the floor, she knelt down smoothly and set down the little lantern. Her fingers, strangely cold, fluttered over his wrists.

“I was trying to get them in front of me,” Ezra whispered. “They feel pretty new, so I thought if I could get a better look at them —”

The rest of that sentence died on his lips as something clicked and the cuffs suddenly loosened. Moving his wrists, they fell off with a soft tinkle as they hit the ground.

“…What?” he said dumbly, raising his wrists to rub at them. “You had a key?”

Sabine didn’t answer, merely pressing a finger to her lips again. Taking one of his free wrists in hand, she pulled it over her shoulder and grabbed the lantern again, standing up and taking him with her. His leg refused to unbend, forcing him to lean heavily on her, but she didn’t so much as grunt.

“Sorry,” Ezra muttered anyways as they began to move towards the doorway. 

Sabine didn’t look at him, keeping her eyes straight ahead. Holding the lantern below her waist, the light only just lit their way, leaving dark shadows pooling in the planes of her face and hiding her eyes, even this close. His leg dragged slightly behind them, the scraping noise loud in the silence of the building.

Really loud. Ezra bit his lower lip, looking behind them and half-expecting to see the Fifth Brother appear behind them. He tried to shift his weight so that he was carrying it better. 

Thankfully, the Fifth Brother stayed wherever it was that he had holed up in. Passing by a set of stairs, Ezra couldn’t keep from peering into the darkness anxiously. Sabine seemed to know where she was going at least, nearly gliding over the floor without a sound as she dragged him along. As they continued on, deeper into the building, nothing happened. No Inquisitor jumped out of the shadows.

But for some reason, the thudding beat of _something’s going to happen_  continued to drum through his head, making his chest tight. 

The light of the lantern wasn’t enough to fully illuminate the corridor that they were in. Ezra opened his eyes wider, trying to peer through the gloom, and strained his ears.

Then he heard it. The sound of footsteps. 

Rapid footsteps.

“Sabine!” he hissed, gripping her arm tightly. But it was too late.

Behind them, a light appeared, brighter than their lantern. The cold blue light splashed against the walls, illuminating them and the Imp that had realized they were gone.

It was the agent, his eyes wide. He lifted his comm to his mouth, but they were already moving.

Sabine had been half-carrying Ezra before this, clearly slowing down her steps to better match the pace he was capable of. Now, though — she bolted, dragging him along with a strength he had never thought her capable of. 

They nearly flew through the darkened hallway. The lantern swung about wildly as they ran, its light jerking around the walls like a strobe and nearly making him trip over a hidden raised floorboard. They were heading deeper and deeper into the building, while behind them the agent shouted.

Ezra’s heart was pounding his chest, so hard that he could barely hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Light and shadow were spinning around him, making him dizzy. Later, he’d blame it for why he tripped when they suddenly burst from the building, back onto the street. 

At the moment where he did, though, he had no thoughts on what to blame. All he had was a sharp stab of panic as the light that had been lighting his way was suddenly swallowed up by the darkness of the street outside, and his leg caught on something. His arm was torn from Sabine’s grip and he held out his hands fruitlessly, remembering the endless fall at the start of all this.

But this fall was shorter. He slammed into the ground before he had much more time than to feel that awful jolt, and felt his chin split open on the ground. The breath in his chest wheezed out of him, leaving his head spinning.

Then large hands were on him, dragging him to his feet. In a panic, his chest aching and still unable to breathe, Ezra thrashed, clawing at the hands and slamming his paralyzed leg into the legs of the person holding him.

The agent shouted in pain, but didn’t let go. “Don’t let Wren escape!” he shouted, his fingers digging into Ezra’s shoulders like the Grand Inquisitor’s had all those months ago on Lothal. 

Ezra panicked even more as his brain made the connection, trying to slam his head back hard enough to force the agent to drop him. “Let go!” he screamed, the force of the words tearing at his throat and mixing with the roar of jetpacks soaring over them. “Let go of me!”

“Ezra Bridger, I am not your enemy!” the agent shouted back, keeping his grip tight. “I only want you to be safe!”

Ezra wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. Where was Sabine? Had she left him?

He reached up behind him and grabbed at the agent’s face, digging his nails into the man’s flesh. His brain was buzzing, a low buzz that reminded him of a lothwasp nest. “Then let — me — GO!”

Something broke underneath his fingers, and underneath his mind. He just wanted the agent to understand, to let him go, to just stop being stupid —

And that urge had lothwasps rising in his mind to drill into the agent’s. The same way it had been back at the Academy with the Headmaster, Ezra broke through the agent’s shields and dove into his mind.

_Impatient, Alexsandr took a step forward. “Viceroy, the rescue of the Inquisitorius cadets has been one of top priorities of the ISB for months, and you yourself was the one to alert us to Wren’s kidnapping. What rebel base is more important than retrieving these two children?”_

_“An attack on rebel headquarters,” the Fifth Brother interjected, his voice buzzing but emotionless. “Where it is expected that more information on where the rest of the Inquisitorius cadets are being hidden.”_

_Alexsandr’s head snapped around as his brain came to a screeching halt. “I beg your pardon.”_

_The Fifth Brother turned his head towards him, his white gaze penetrating. “The main headquarters of the Rebellion has been found; that is why the soldiers are needed.” He turned back to the Viceroy. “The Grand Inquisitor will understand our need, though. He especially wants Ezra Bridger retrieved.”_

Images and voices and knowledge raced through Ezra’s mind, a jumble that he could just barely make sense of. He could feel wetness under his fingers, and the ache inside his head and chest that came with using the Dark Side.

Gasping, he pulled himself away from the agent, who was no longer gripping him. Staggering, his leg dragging, he turned to look behind himself and regretted it immediately.   
The agent was still standing, at least. But that was about all he was doing. His light dropped on the ground, Ezra could still see dark tracks of what could only be blood streaking down his face from his nose and eyes. The man was swaying in place, his eyes wide but vacant.

He looked like the Headmaster had, just before Ezra had forced him to blow his own brains out. The comparison had what little was left in his stomach trying to force its way up his throat.

Slowly backing away, he could hear the sounds of a fight going on behind him, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the sight in front of him. At least, not until an iron grip abruptly wrapped around his throat for the second time in less than an hour.

That jolted him out of the daze that he’d fallen into. Grabbing at the hand around his neck, he clawed uselessly. 

“You,” the Fifth Brother growled, “are far more trouble than you’re worth.” His fingers squeezed a little tighter.

Wheezing for breath, Ezra tried to pull the fingers away a little more frantically. It was useless, though; injuries or not, the Fifth Brother’s grip was as tight as it had been back at the Academy.

His eyes rolled in their sockets. The sound of the jetpacks had stopped; had they gotten Sabine already —

A blur of white appeared out the darkness and slammed into the Fifth Brother, forcing him to drop Ezra as he staggered and fell to the ground with a crash. Wheezing and with tears pricking at his eyes, Ezra rolled onto his back and began to frantically scuttle away as best he could.

The Fifth Brother groaned, rolling onto his knees and elbows. 

Ezra’s heart tried to jump into his throat but was interrupted by another white blur slamming into the Inquisitor, this time hitting hard enough to knock him several feet away.  
Scraping across the ground, the white blur soon came to a rest, revealing itself to be the limp body of one of the supercommandos. His eyes darting, Ezra saw that the first white blur was the other trooper.

Had Sabine done this? Had Sabine beaten up two armoured troopers on her own so quickly —

There was a hurried tapping of feet pounding against the ground, and the girl herself appeared. Without a word, she leaned down and hauled him to his feet. 

“Sabine!” he gasped, his throat aching —

But she didn’t answer. She moved, like he weighed nothing, heading into the dark with hurried but confident steps.

“Sabine!” he croaked again, grabbing at her shirt.

She still didn’t answer, only moving towards a wall just barely illuminated by the dropped lamps by the Imperials. 

“Sabine, how did you —”

The wall moved. It clicked and opened with a low rumble and rasp, like some secret door being opened for the first time in centuries. Ezra looked, twisting in her arms, and saw that it was just that; what looked like a door, built into the side of a large building, pulled back to reveal what looked like a set of stairs that lead even deeper downwards into the city. 

“What…is this?”

This time, Sabine answered. Silently, she turned to face Ezra, and he saw that it wasn’t Sabine that he had been talking to. Back where they had been being held, he hadn’t been able to see her eyes, shadowed as they were. Now, though…

They were full of stars. Like a night sky, they were totally black, with only the pinpricks of white to give relief. And abruptly, Ezra realized that the person in front of him may have looked like Sabine, but they didn’t feel at all like her through the Force.

Silently, the person — the thing in Sabine’s body — lifted a finger to their lips. Then they twined their arm with his and tugged him forward. Towards the stairs, and the further depths of Sundari’s Undercity.

“Wait!” he cried, but it was too late. 

The shadows swallowed up the two of them without a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls out of a pit and plops this down in front of you all*
> 
> Heyyyyy, so - sorry about the mini-hiatus. Didn't really intend for that. But anyways, I just wanted to let you guys know that I think I figured out why I was having so much trouble. With two stories going in separate fandoms, I don't think that I can keep up the every two weeks schedule, so...I'm bumping this down to one chapter a month. Hopefully that will help me feel less overworked and allow me to keep up a high quality of work.
> 
> Again, sorry for all the trouble ^^;


	12. Screams

Sabine didn’t quite wake in darkness; waking implied that she had been asleep, and the way she had suddenly become aware did not taste of a slow rise to wakefulness. No, she was simply suddenly, horribly aware that she was not where she had been previously, and that she didn’t know how she had gotten to this new place here.

The fact that she couldn’t see anything didn’t help. She could feel herself blinking, her eyelashes dragging against something, and when she wiggled her fingers she could feel something bumpy underneath them. The floor of the building she’d previously woken up in had been worn smooth. So — definitely somewhere different. Could Tristan —

She cut that thought off immediately. He’d made himself very clear. If she was waking up at all, then he definitely wasn’t involved.

Slowly, she pulled her arms in and began to push herself up, careful not to go too fast in case she’d been shoved into some sort of box. Her head didn’t knock against anything, though, and soon she was on her knees.

She still couldn’t see anything, unfortunately. Wherever she was, there weren’t even the rare little breaks in the city above to let light in. Waving a hand in front of her face, she could feel the movement, but couldn’t pick it up with her eyes.

Alright. Alright. Her stomach flipped and flopped, trying to struggle it’s way up her throat, but she forced it back down by swallowing. So she couldn’t use her eyes — she was a Mandalorian warrior. She didn’t need them to rescue herself from wherever she’d woken up. Reaching out, she felt at the odd, bumpy floor.

Underneath her fingers, she quickly figured out that the bumps weren’t just random. Too regularly shaped and too regularly placed to be natural, she guessed that the bumps were tiny tiles — a mosaic, perhaps? Not the most common Mandalorian art form these days, but if she remembered her history right they had been popular during the early years of the Old Republic.

Crawling forward, she groped in front of her, trying to tell if she was about to run into something. Or someone —

Oh god.

Her hand stuttered in the long sweeps she was making.

Ezra. Where was Ezra? She didn’t know where she was, and she hadn’t seen Ezra back with the Imps — had he been left behind with them? Had she abandoned him to the Inquisitor and the dumb agent?

Suddenly, her sweeping was more urgent. She moved forward faster. The room she was in seemed to be fairly large — enough that she’d been at this for a good minute without hitting anything — but something told her that she wasn’t lucky enough that whatever had happened to dump her here was nice enough to do the same with Ezra. She had to get out of here. She had to find —

Her hand brushed against something hard, and she snatched it back like it had been burnt. Then, once her heartbeat had slowed down a little, she reached back out.

It was — round-ish. Velvety-smooth under her fingers. And cold — so cold that it made her fingers hurt as she picked it up. A rock?

Then the darkness lightened a little.

Sabine dropped the rock. It clattered against the floor, skittering a small ways away from her. But she wasn’t seeing things. It was glowing; the little rock thing was glowing, like it had sucked the heat from her hand and transmuted it into a soft white light.

A soft white light that was rapidly fading, now that it was away from her heat. Sabine scrambled forward and grabbed the rock, horribly aware that she had nothing else to light her way. It hurt in her hands, making her wonder if the chill of it would make the skin of her palms stick to it, but the light only got brighter the longer she held on to it. Carved onto one side was a simple star, half smoothed away from what was no doubt thousands of hands.

It was amazing, how much better that light made her feel. Rocking back on her heels, Sabine breathed out in relief and looked around her.

Unfortunately, her instinct was right. Whatever had dumped her here hadn’t been nice enough to do the same with Ezra.

The room was large. Or rather, the hall was. Stretching out around her, she could just barely see the walls on either side of her, and behind her was nothing but shadows that not even the brightening light she was holding could pierce through. Above her, a ceiling arched and glimmered in the darkness, suggesting a starry sky above. In front of her was a set of steps that lead up to a door, in which a design of stylized stars had been carved. And underneath her feet…

She had been right. It had been a mosaic. The part she was on was a path of white, broken up with the occasional bit of blue, but on either side was a riot of colour. Lifting her glowing rock up, she could see the armour of a hundred different warriors picked out in glass and coloured tiles, all facing towards the door. They even crawled up the walls, flanking the door like guards to a throne room.

It was beautiful. It was colourful. It was so much the opposite of anything Imperial that it took her breath away.

“What is this place?” she whispered. And how had it avoided the purges? The Imperials would have never left this in place had they known about it; they would have either destroyed it or torn it up so that they could put it on display as a trophy in some museum.

Lowering her light, she looked at the door and chewed on her lower lip. This — should she go through the door, and deeper into whatever this was? Or should she go back into the darkness, possibly finding Ezra?

Something in her gut tugged at her to go through the door. But the idea of leaving Ezra behind made her chest ache…

A loud click echoed in the silence.

Sabine whipped her head back around towards the large door. Where before it had been closed, it was now open. Just a crack — but it was open, where before it had been closed.

Maybe she’d been assuming too much. Maybe Ezra wasn’t behind her; maybe he was ahead.

She took a step forward hesitantly. “Ezra?” she called.

There was no answer. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t there. Stepping closer to the door, her boots clacked loudly against the mosaic underneath them. The steps at least were smooth stone, pale white that nevertheless seemed to shimmer with all of the other colours that surrounded her as she walked up it. The door itself was dark, but again as she came closer it seemed to shimmer with colour, smooth and glossy and cold to the touch.

“Ezra?” she called again, poking her head through the door. “Are you there?”

“…Sabine?” came the call back.

Relief flooded her limbs, making her dizzy. “Ezra!” she called again, stepping fully into the room and holding the rock out in front of her. “Stay where you are, I’m coming!” The door slid shut behind her as she walked further in, but she ignored it. She could deal with it later.

The hallways she found herself in seemed at first to be a simple continuation to the one outside. Perhaps a little darker, the colours not so bright, but she wasn’t paying that much attention to them as she walked forward briskly.

At least, not at first. As the light in her hand continued to shine, though, she found her steps slowing. Because light, apparently, was what this particular hallway needed to shine.

All around her, the walls began to glow. At first dimly, as she continued down the hall they got brighter and brighter, revealing colours so vibrant and carvings so detailed that she felt like she had stepped onto a another world entirely.

There were figures of armoured Mandalorians, of course, but unlike outside where they dominated the decorations, in here it was more like a game to try and spot them. Instead of massive groups, the walls here were covered in murals of stars and planets, picked out in a detail that made her mistake them temporarily for holos. But no; reaching up to the vaulted ceilings above, stars and planets seemed to almost move when she wasn’t looking at the directly. Figures flew in and out between them, both ships and people. It made her think of the Ghost, of people traveling and learning and living. Of people rising from the planets that they had been trapped on, and escaping from the prisons they’d been locked away in. It even extended to the path she was traveling on; underneath her feet, the path had loosened, the tiles being more widely spaced so that she felt like she was walking on a galaxy.

How long had it been since she’d seen a piece of art like this? A piece of art that wasn’t glorifying anything but beauty for beauty’s sake?

The murals changed as she passed them by, shifting from representations of star systems to depictions of architecture and people so realistic that she nearly walked into more than one wall, thinking that it was just a doorway that could get her to Ezra faster. They glowed and shimmered under the light of the stone she held, making the whole hall feel alive.

Stars, what was this place? The way things were under the Empire, not even the wealthiest families would decorate a public place like this. It would invite questions as to why they weren’t putting their money into supporting the Empire rather than ‘fripperies’.

Her stomach twisted at the thought. More than one family during the purges had been ‘investigated’ under that logic as an excuse to confiscate their money.

She turned away from the murals and grimaced, feeling almost like she had profaned this place with those memories. The murals that surrounded her celebrated Mandalorian life, not the red lightsabers and death squads that filled her memories.

“Sabine!”

There was a note of alarm in that voice, making her head snap up. She’d never heard Ezra sound that panicked before, except —

Her fascination with the wall art fell away and she charged forward, towards the sound. Around her, the figures blurred and twisted, almost looking like they were running with her —

“Ah,” said a deep, awfully familiar voice, “there you are Cadet.”

Sabine nearly tripped over her own feet. The glowing stone flew from her hands, skittering across the ground and into the shadows, its glow rapidly fading.

That didn’t matter, though, as its light was quickly replaced by sheets of red light that splashed across the walls like blood. Light that she recognized just as well as she recognized the owner of that awful, purring voice.

Her heart thundering in her ears, Sabine stared at the figures in front of her. “No,” she whispered. “No, you can’t be down here.”

The Grand Inquisitor, tall and pale and terrifying, grinned at her. His sharp, yellowed teeth looked like they could tear her flesh from her bones in that awful red light.  
Or Ezra’s.

Bending over, the Grand Inquisitor’s fingers dug just a little harder into Ezra’s jaw as the boy struggled against him, trying to pull his steely fingers away. “Oh?” he said, that awful purring tone underlying his words. “Who says that I can’t?” His lit lightsaber, held in a relaxed grip at his side, gave lie to the pleasantness of his words.

Visibly trembling, the rasp of Ezra’s breaths was loud in the silence as Sabine fully turned around. Her fingers brushed at her belt uselessly — the Imps had taken her bag away and she hadn’t brought her blaster —

“Let go of him,” she tried to demand. Her voice was shaking.

The Grand Inquisitor chuckled, his golden eyes gleaming. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “After all, the orphan here is so very valuable to the Empire.”

Ezra’s eyes were wide and pleading.

Sabine gritted her teeth, trying to think of something, anything, to offer in Ezra’s place —

The thought struck her and she swallowed. There was only one thing she had that could take his place.

She took a step forward. “Take me,” she said, swallowing to wet her now-dry throat. It made her skin crawl, but if it spared Ezra… “You know my work. What I’m capable of making. I’m more valuable than any single Force-user. Let him go, and take me instead.”

The Grand Inquisitor raised an eyebrow. “Hmm,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “A bold offer, Cadet. You might even have a point — it was your work that enabled our purge…”  
Sabine couldn’t stop her flinch. She squeezed her hands into fists.

“I accept your offer,” the Grand Inquisitor finally said. Letting go of Ezra, he shoved him away from him.

Sabine felt a bolt of relief run through her.

“Since I’m done with him, however…”

The red blade of his lightsaber flicked through the air and through Ezra before Sabine could stop him. Ezra didn’t even have time to scream. He just dropped like a stone onto the ground.

It was Sabine’s screams that filled the air instead as she tried to rush towards the body of her little brother. But the Grand Inquisitor was suddenly in front of her, his fingers digging into her cheeks like a steel trap.

“Now, now,” he said, ignoring how she frantically punched at him, “a deal is a deal. Besides, you begged for this, remember?”

She hadn’t begged —

Then suddenly Sabine was shoved back, was falling — and was sitting up, narrowly missing banging her head against the top of the bunk above her.

“Come on, you said yourself, you begged to come here.”

A bunk — what —

* * *

“Sabine!”

Ezra breathed raggedly as he struggled to turn in a circle, looking for the hundredth time in the last five minutes for his crewmate. The point where his prosthetic leg was attached to what was left of his flesh leg hurt so badly from the movement it nearly drove him to tears, but he couldn’t stop.

Stars, he’d only taken his eyes off of her for a moment. Being half-helped, half-dragged down all those stairs by whatever had been in her body, he’d kept one hand on her arm and one on the wall just to keep from falling down. Once they’d reached the bottom though, and he’d wriggled free of its grip to pause and catch his breath…

Finishing his turn, his eyes fell on what she’d left behind, tucked into a little nook on top of a massive pile of dust that may have once been flowers, now long crumbled underneath the weight of however many years they’d been down here. The narrow lantern that had lit their way sat on top of the pile, still shining its low light and making the utter lack of Sabine all that more obvious.

He was alone down here, except for the figures painted on the walls.

Biting his lower lip, Ezra tried to swallow back the lump in his throat. After everything that had just happened — after the Fifth Brother, after slipping up and attacking that agent like that, after seeing that someone else was in Sabine’s body — her just disappearing like that made him just want to sit down and cry. Everything was just going wrong, and he didn’t know how to fix any of it.

Crying doesn’t fix anything, he told himself sternly. Crying here would do nothing but waste time. Wherever Sabine had gone — or wherever that starry-eyed thing had taken her body — she could be hurt, or lost. She would need his help.

The tightness in his chest paradoxically eased at that thought. He didn’t want her to be hurt, but whatever had possessed her clearly had its own agenda. Even if it had fought off the two supercommandos and the Fifth Brother, Ezra didn’t know what it wanted from her. Having a concrete worry, one that he could make plans to correct, helped distract him from the storm of confusion that was otherwise raging through his mind.

He breathed in deeply, and then let it out slowly the way Kanan had showed him. Yes. Sabine was missing, and that was terrifying, but he could fix this. She couldn’t have gotten far; not without the lantern. Hobbling over to the nook, he picked up the lantern. His leg twinged, but he ignored it. He’d felt worse, and with less to distract him.

Raising the lantern, he peered into the darkness.

Where they had stopped, at the bottom of the stairs, was a large circular room with three archways leading deeper into the building. Built like it expected to have a bunch of ten-foot-tall sentients in it, both the archways and ceilings soared above Ezra’s head. The walls were thickly painted with bright colours that Ezra had never seen on buildings before, formed in the shape of people dressed in armour like Sabine’s. Looking them over, he tried to see if any of them had some sort of clue as to where Sabine would have gone.

All three were depressingly identical, without so much as a hint of which one Sabine must have gone down. There wasn’t even dust on the ground that could have been disturbed by someone walking through it. The whole place was spick and span, like no one had ever been in it before.

The lump began to crawl back up Ezra’s throat. He determinedly swallowed it down. Sabine needed his help, he told himself sternly.

There were only three possible ways she could have gone. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus and reach out through the Force.

At first, he felt nothing. Just a vast, black emptiness like the space between stars. Not even that thing that had looked back at him before, when they had first fallen down and he’d tried to reach Kanan. But then —

_…Ezra…_

His eyes snapped open. Had that — that sounded like Sabine, but through the Force, so how — ?

It had come from the middle archway, that the figures on the walls seemed to be painted so that it looked like they were heading towards it.

“…Sabine?” he called hesitantly. He took a step forward.

“…Ezra…”

His name came again, almost too faint to hear. But he heard it. Determinedly, he began to limp forward into the archway. “Sabine, I can hear you! Don’t worry, I’m coming!”

“…Ezra…”

The pain in his leg was rising, but Ezra pushed it away. The lantern swung wildly as he struggled forward, illuminating more armoured warriors painted on the walls. All of them were facing forward, towards whatever was at the end of the hall. The way the light jittered and bounced across them, they almost looked like they were alive and moving, marching forward to some great war.

Ezra only distantly noticed this. Limping forward, sweat began to prickle at his hairline and drip down his temples with the effort of walking. His leg sent shooting pains up and through his hip and spine, so bad that tears began to well up in his eyes, but he didn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t let that stop him, not when he was so close —

The tunnel abruptly opened up into a massive room; so abruptly that Ezra didn’t see the steps in front of him. His stiffened leg swung forward and dropped further than he expected. For a moment, he teetered, his arms snapping out and windmilling in a desperate attempt to keep from falling. Only a moment, though; his momentum meant that he could not stop his painful tumble down a set of hard, stone steps any more than he could fly.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” Ezra grunted with every jolt. The lantern crashed down the steps as well, its light flying around the room too fast for Ezra to take in any detail before hitting the ground and skittering several feet away. With one final shout of pain, Ezra came to a stop as well at the foot of the stairs, wheezing, his head whirling.

Groaning, Ezra got an arm underneath him and slowly pushed himself up. That had _hurt_. Reaching up to rub at his head, he looked around.

Behind him was the set of stone steps he’d fallen down, looking much smaller than they had felt as he tumbled down them. In front of him, though…

The room was massive. The lantern had luckily been tough enough to survive the fall without breaking and was still letting out light, illuminating enormous pillars that soared up above him, carved to look like masses of Mandalorian warriors, twisting and flying around each other upwards, into the darkness of the ceiling where Ezra could only just see a few small twinkles that looked like they were meant to represent lights. Below them, the lights were mirrored; literally so, with the pillars looking like they stretched downwards as well until disappearing into darkness. Only the coolness of the floor beneath Ezra’s fingertips reassured him that he wasn’t, in fact, about to fall into the void.

His leg stiff and unmoving, Ezra dismissed the idea of trying to stand and merely scuttled forward towards the lantern, setting it right side up and shining the light ahead of him. The beam of light shot ahead of him, leaving a yellow streak along the floor that threatened to drown out of the flecks of light in the stone.

Until it hit what looked like a glossy black wall, its reflection warping until it looked like a candle flame. And resting against that glossy black —

“Sabine,” Ezra breathed. Her bag, battered and pale, rested against the stone like a crumpled body. Struggling to his feet, he picked up the lantern and began to limp towards it. “Sabine?!”

There was only the bag, though, as he got closer. Sabine was nowhere to be seen. Absentmindedly, Ezra put the lantern down on what turned out to not be a wall but a small raised platform and roughly grabbed the bag, looking for some sort of clue as to what had happened to separate Sabine from her bag.

There was nothing. Leaning against the weird wall, Ezra held the bag up to the light and rummaged through it furiously, only to find nothing. Just the little odds and ends and inactive grenades that she had had in the bag before — no clue to tell him how her bag had ended up here without her —

Something gold gleamed in the shadows of the bag. Ezra narrowed his eyes and immediately pulled it out.

It was some cube made of a golden-looking metal and glass, nearly as big as two of his fists put together and definitely not something that Sabine would have been lugging around.

“What…” he muttered to himself, pushing it closer to the light. The metal was ornately worked with straight lines that intersected and twined around each other in a way that reminded him of some of the buildings he’d seen in the upper parts of Sundari, before they went down to the Old City. The glass was blue and sparkling in the light of the lamp, sending reflections skittering across the glossy platform —

Something tickled at the back of Ezra’s mind. He’d seen something like this before, but smaller. Something that Kanan had showed him, that his master had given him…

A holocron. That was what he had called it. But the one Kanan had was much smaller — about half of the size of this one. And also more delicate looking — this one had enough heft that Ezra could have cracked someone’s head open with it.

But that didn’t help him. It only created even more questions.

“Damn it…” Ezra muttered. He glared down at the bag, hanging from the crook of his arm now. He needed to find Sabine, and this holocron was not going to be able to help him —

Click.

Ezra’s eyes snapped back towards the holocron. One of its corners had turned. As he watched, another one began to turn.

“No,” he said sternly, like that would stop it. His stomach clenched. “No no no, don’t you dare, I do not need something like this now —”

The holocron didn’t listen. The second corner placidly finished twisting, and then with a tug freed itself from his hand and floated a few feet away as the third corner began to turn.

Ezra began to look around, his stomach starting to flip. What was this; Kanan had to focus to float his own holocron — did that mean that he wasn’t alone?

More clicks floated to his ears. Then the sound of a fire catching, a low ‘whumph’ that he could feel in his chest.

And then nothing but light, searing across his eyes.

* * *

Ketsu stood in the doorway, smiling and looking younger than she was. The tightness that had settled around her eyes as the Purge had gone on and on was missing, and she was actually smiling…

“Come on,” she said, pushing off of the doorframe where she’d been resting and settling a hand on her hip, “you can’t nap the day away. And in any case, Viceroy Saxon wants to talk to you before dinner.”

…Oh no. Oh no. Sabine remembered this. She remembered this day, and what had happened on it. It had been just before the Purge. Just before the Empire had —

She didn’t want to get up. Or at least, she didn’t want to go with Ketsu to see Saxon. She didn’t want to meet the unmentioned guest that had been there with his cold black and gold eyes. She already knew what happened there, and she would have done anything to avoid it again. But her body didn’t listen to her mental begging. Instead, it sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed, sliding her feet into her boots.

No, no, no, she chanted in her head as she stood up and walked after Ketsu silently. No, no, no, she wanted to scream as she ran away.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was just a passenger in her own body, unable to even make a sound, and soon they were in front of the door to the Viceroy’s office, and she was ushered in. Alone.

She wanted to scream. The place was the exact same as it always had been. White and black and with a red banner behind the desk, streaking down the wall like blood. And in front of it, their heads bowed together in low conversation, was Gar Saxon and the Grand Inquisitor.

As the door closed behind her, Saxon looked up and smirked at her. At the time, she had thought it was a smile. Now though, she knew it had been a smirk. The same smirk that haunted her nightmares.

“Ah, good, we caught you in time,” he said, his voice falsely friendly. Glancing at the datapad, he put it down on the desk as the Grand Inquisitor straightened, folding his hands behind his back. “Grand Inquisitor, this is the Cadet that wrote the program that we were looking at. Cadet Wren, this is the Grand Inquisitor.”

At the time that this had actually happened, Sabine had smiled nervously. She hadn’t realized that a monster was standing in front of her, and had simply assumed that the alien was a high-ranked Imperial. She’d wanted to impress him. She’d wanted to impress both of them.

“Cadet Wren,” the Grand Inquisitor damn near purred. “I’m impressed with your work. I wouldn’t have thought that someone so young was the mind behind it.”

Sabine wanted to throw up at the greedy look in the alien’s eyes. She wanted to spit on his black armour as he came up to her and placed a ‘friendly’ hand on her shoulder.

“Unfortunately,” the Grand Inquisitor said, pushing her towards the desk and that damned datapad, “there are a few particulars that are a bit over my head. Would you mind explaining it to me?”

No, Sabine wanted to scream as he picked it up and began to point at several lines of code. She knew exactly what he wanted to do with her assignment. With the program that she’d built to help Mandalore, not kill its citizens.

She wanted to scream, to shout. She could feel her jaw moving —

But not her mouth opening.

Instead, she felt the familiar burning sensation of skin stretching.

Now, her arms could move. She brought her hands up to her mouth, her fingers brushing over the area where her lips should be, and all she could feel was smooth skin under them.

The Grand Inquisitor nodded thoughtfully as Saxon leaned against the desk, radiating smugness. “So essentially, a surveillance system that acts like a virus, jumping from comm to comm as they’re used near each other.”

Sabine scratched at the smooth skin. No, no — not a surveillance system, a mapping system! Her program hadn’t been meant to pry into people’s lives, just see where the most calls were taking place so that the Empire knew where it would be best to rebuild the comm towers that regulated such traffic!

Saxon shrugged, replying to the original correction that she had spoken at the time that the memory was taking place — the time that she had still trusted him as her mother’s comrade. As her patron, who would only have good reasons to check up on her schoolwork. “Close enough. I’m no expert, but I’m fairly certain that a listening packet could be slapped in here without affecting its functioning.”

Sabine scratched that much harder, digging her nails into her own flesh in a useless gesture, like she could claw herself a new mouth. She remembered what she’d done the last time at his words — she’d happily come forward, eager to please and proud of her work, showing him exactly how he could do just that —

She felt the skin where her mouth should have been sting, and something wet begin dripping down her chin. She kept clawing at her own flesh, because surely this time, surely this time she’d be able to say the words that had lived in her chest since the Purges, the words she had wished and sobbed and begged so many times as she thought back to them.

No. No. It’s not a tool to hurt people. I won’t let you use it, I won’t let you do this —

The words welled up and she clawed, feeling meat parting under her fingers, but there was just more behind it, and the words were backing up in her throat and filling her chest like water and drowning her.

No. No. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I never meant for this to happen. My intentions were good. It was supposed to help everyone.

All words she had whispered to herself, that night that she met Kanan, when she’d felt the cool metal of the blaster’s barrel cutting into the skin of her temple.

“Well, in any case, I doubt that it will be any trouble for our technicians to modify it appropriately,” the Grand Inquisitor said. His heavy pat to her shoulder felt more like a blow than a reassuring gesture. “I have to tell you though, I am very impressed with what you’ve managed here. _Very_  impressed.”

There was blood dripping down her wrists now, staining her white cadet uniform red, and still all she felt was meat, muffling and silencing her screams.

The heavy hand on her shoulder turned her around, guiding her back towards the door. There were red footprints where she had originally walked in, and she could smell the sickening stench of iron that massive amounts of blood let off.

No. No. Please, stars, no…

She craned her head over her shoulder, trying to see the Grand Inquisitor, or even Saxon. But all she could see behind her was the red banner of the Empire, still looking like a fresh streak of blood against the wall, trickling down and onto the floor where it puddled and further spread like the hands of the people that she had helped the Empire murder…

“Now,” Saxon and the Grand Inquisitor’s voices rumbled in her ears, “off we go!”

And then she was falling, surrounded by the scent of a bloody charnel house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, that's right, we're starting the freaky Force-vision trauma conga line! Hope you guys liked it!


	13. I Want to Live

Sabine fell, and fell, and fell until she hit something soft and bounced. At some point during the fall, she had closed her eyes, and now she snapped them open, sitting up and trying to steady herself.

Her vision blurry but clearing more with every second, her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized where she was. The walls covered with familiar painted murals and her legs tangled in familiar sheets, she sucked in a breath, suddenly blessed with a mouth. 

Home. She was home on Krownest, somehow —

No. In the distance, she could hear boots marching. Struggling from bed, she looked down and saw that she was now wearing pyjamas, a large t-shirt and shorts, both liberally spattered with paint. The pyjamas she’d worn after running home and begging her mother to protect her. There was no blood, and feeling her face there were no scratches or claw marks from where she had tried to make a new mouth. Just her mouth with its thin lips and useless, silent tongue. 

Her hand was shaking as she lowered it from her face. The sound of marching boots continued, spreading through air like blood in water.

There were no weapons in her room. Her mother thought it was unsafe, and with the sound of marching growing ever louder, Sabine allowed a flicker of resentment before pushing it down. The boots getting louder meant the roundheads were getting closer, and she needed to run and get something to defend herself with.

The corridor outside was cold, the floor sucking the warmth out of her bare feet until they ached. She needed a weapon, something to defend herself from the marching feet who’s sound was pounding through her skull like a headache. She needed to defend herself, because there was no one here who would do it for her — 

No one here indeed. As Sabine ran through the hallways, she didn’t see anyone from her clan. The people she was used to seeing, the other warriors, the artists, the craftsmen that were always up and wandering the halls as they waited for something to finish drying or proofing or something — there was no one. Just her, and the Empire. 

She giggled hysterically as she sprinted. Not much of a difference there. It wasn’t like they’d actually defended her last time, when they had been there. She burst through a set of doors that should have lead her to the clan armory — 

— And instead found herself in the main hall, her mother sitting stone-faced on her throne. She didn’t say anything as she saw Sabine. She just sat there, her eyes glittering with contempt.

“Mother,” Sabine breathed.

And then the black armoured hands of the roundheads wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing tight enough to hurt. “Mother!”

It was a panicked shout. She hadn’t actually expected anything to happen. But as more armoured hands joined the originals, pulling at her arms and legs and hair, her mother’s silence still pierced her chest. “Mother, please…”

But her mother stayed silent and unmoving, her eyes like cold stones.

The rest of the clan was there too now, standing by the throne and along the walls, their helmets on and inscrutable. They were like statues as Sabine was dragged away, silent and unmoving even as she dropped her head and cried, the tears sliding down her nose and falling on the floor. And they remained that way, even as they reached the large doors that lead away from the throne and into the open. 

Now the sun was white, and hot, making her eyes well up for another reason. Underneath her feet, rather than snow, white sand parted around her heels.

They weren’t on Krownest anymore. When it was hot there during the summer, you could almost taste the water in the air, rising off of lush forests and lakes. The heat in the air here, though, was dry, threatening to make her skin crack underneath the white sun. They were back on Mandalore. Back on the planet that she’d fled from, that she’d begged her mother to keep away from her.

Even with tears in her eyes, she could see the black dome of Sundari looming above her. And below it, dug into the white dust that choked the surface of the planet —

She gagged and immediately regretted it as the unmistakable stench of rotting bodies coated the back of her throat. It was one of the pits where they’d dumped the bodies of ‘traitors’ to rot that was yawning open in front of her. Dozens of feet deep, they’d been the final destination of the piles of bodies that had littered the square in front of the Duchess’ Palace. Stopping at the edge, she could see the tangle of pale and dark limbs twined together down at the bottom, too still to be anything but dead.

“Ah, good,” came the awful, familiar tones of Saxon. “You have her.”

Sabine tore her eyes away from the pit as she was turned around and saw that it wasn’t just her and the roundheads standing at the edge of the pit. 

She saw Saxon first, a smirk on his face. Then the Grand Inquisitor, his eyes narrowed in tooka-like satisfaction and holding another damned datapad. And then finally her clan, their armour on and scrubbed clean of any colour.

“Now that you’re finished with your little tantrum,” Saxon continued, “the Grand Inquisitor has some more questions for you. You see, while you were gone we found ourselves going through your work —”

“— And I must say,” the Grand Inquisitor purred, “I’m a fan. Especially with this little idea of yours that you call the Duchess…”

She’d wanted to throw up the first time she’d heard that. The urge hadn’t faded at all, hearing those words a second time. “No,” she said. This time she could speak. “No, no, I won’t —”

But it was useless, just like last time. They didn’t even reply to her denial, her refusal.

“Now, your ah, absence does present some problems,” the Grand Inquisitor continued, not even bothering to look at her, “but not insurmountable ones. Reprimands can be explained, especially with a mind as promising as yours —”

“No! I won’t kill people for you —”

Sabine kept screaming, and the Grand Inquisitor kept talking. She screamed, and shouted, and begged, and he didn’t stop. No one reacted. No one so much as looked at her.  
Why would you pay attention to what a cog in a machine wanted, after all?

It was almost a relief, when the first hand grabbed her ankle. It gave her something else to think about other than the repeat of what had lead to her standing in that square that night with the muzzle of a blaster pressed to her head. At some point, the roundheads had let go of her arms, leaving her standing at the edge of the pit and screaming.

Their hands had been warm, even through their gloves.

The hands now grasping at her ankles, her legs, her shirt, were cold. Cold as death.

The screams stuttered in her throat, and she looked back.

The bodies in the pit were no longer still and tangled together. They were moving, a sinuous squirm like maggots in roadkill, reaching up and staring at her with cloudy eyes. Grabbing at her and dragging her down into the pit with them.

Their hands were grabbing her arms now. Her shoulders.

She turned her head back towards Saxon. Towards the Grand Inquisitor. Towards her silent clan, watching all of this go on without a whisper of protest. 

And then she fell. Down, down, down, into the grave where she belonged.

* * *

The arms of the dead welcomed her, embracing her like family and blocking out the harsh sunlight of Mandalore. The pulled at her limbs, tugging them away from her body. They covered her face, blocking out the empty and uncaring sky. And they wrapped tight around her waist, pulling her down deeper into the pit. Cold as they were, Sabine couldn’t find the strength to struggle against them. If nothing else, they kept her from hearing those awful words again, etched into her skull.

Limbs wrapped around her like snakes, Sabine closed her eyes to the dark and tried to forget. Tried not to think about Saxon and the Academy. Tried not to think about how happily she had handed over her original programs, thinking that she was helping to make Mandalore safe. Tried not to think about how her mother had stayed silent as she was dragged back to make more programs and inventions and ways to kill everyone and everything she loved.

It was appropriate, she thought, drifting. The tears that had poured down her face as she was dragged through her family’s halls were dried now, smeared away by cold hands. It was appropriate that she’d been dragged down into this pit. She’d tried to run away from it, tried to make up for it, but she deserved to be down here with everyone she’d gotten killed, didn’t she? What else could she do to make up for what she had done?

That night, after being returned, after learning from the lips of the Grand Inquisitor himself what her future would be, she’d tried to think of a way out. She’d tried to use her great big brain that everyone had always complimented to figure out how to get out of killing even more people, and had failed. All she had been able to think of were the lists of names that she had processed along with all the other cadets in the Academy, making up crimes to justify their executions. All she had been able to hear were the screams of the people that had been lined up in the square and shot with a mechanical lack of emotion. All she had been to think of was the utter silence that had echoed through her family’s halls. Through the Academy’s halls. Through the streets, with no one left to weep over the dead.

She had done that. She had caused both the screams and the silence. And all she could think to do that could possibly make up for what had happened was to die along with her victims.

Like they agreed with her, the cold arms of the bodies around her constricted, snakelike. Fingers covered her eyes and mouth, digging in. They were as icy as the wind had been that night.

She had snuck out. It hadn’t been easy; after her first attempt to flee, security around the Sundari Academy had been heightened. But for one last time, her big brain had come in handy and she’d figured out a way around the patrols. She’d gotten out into the silent city, so different from the lively if ordered place that she’d first entered as a student.

She had snuck out, and down, until she was surrounded by the dead that were waiting to be taken to the pits dug outside of the dome; until she was surrounded by the evidence of her crimes. And then she had taken out the blaster that had been a gift from her family when Saxon had taken her away from them the first time and pressed the muzzle against her head.

She’d been crying and cold and ready to die, and then she had felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She had turned around, surprise and dread clogging her throat —

— And seen the warmest green-blue eyes she’d ever seen, wide with concern that she didn’t deserve. 

Kanan hadn’t spoken at first. Wrapping his other hand around her wrist, he’d pulled the blaster away from her head, tugging it from her hand. And then he had pulled her to his chest in the sort of hug she hadn’t felt since she left Krownest for the first time. 

A hug utterly unlike the arms that were winding around her right now. Warm, so warm and comforting, with just the right amount of firmness. Without any input from her mind, she tried to hug herself, pulling at the hands that were holding her arms away from her body. 

The fingers dug in, fighting against her. Fighting against the warmth blooming in her chest at the memory, replacing the cold void where her heart had been after her clan threw her away. She had been sinking deeper and deeper into the pit as she had remembered the despair she’d felt in that awful place, but now the arms around her waist weakened. No matter how hard they pulled, she had stopped sinking down.

Kanan had hugged her close, petting her hair after he’d made her drop her blaster. She couldn’t remember his exact words, but she remembered his tone, soft and gentle, and the way that awful guilt that had been tugging on her guts had lessened, just for a few blessed moments. 

She did remember his offer to take her away, though. To take her away from Mandalore, and the death, and the guilt. He hadn’t even known her, hadn’t been family or even a friend — but he had done what her family had refused to do, and taken her away from Mandalore and the Empire.

She had had to do a few things first, before she ran. Destroy her school records, so that the Grand Inquisitor and Saxon couldn’t just pick through it for more weapons. Get her armour, which for some reason hadn’t been taken away from her. Perhaps Saxon had known that letting her keep it and remember the betrayal of the people that had helped her reforge it for herself would hurt worse than it being taken away. Blow a big enough hole in the Academy so that anyone else that wanted to escape had at least this one chance.

And then she was gone. Free and far away.

The hands on her neck loosened.

The guilt had followed her, of course. Just leaving Sundari wasn’t enough to purge her of it, or the dreams of the bodies that had had the faces of her family being dropped into one of the mass graves. She had thrown herself into mission after mission, determined to see them through. To do something good before she died.

She nearly had more than once. Missions to get weapons for the Resistance, carrying information to the different cells, working to gain access to labs that held the cure for a virulent disease that had been unleashed onto some rebelling world — she’d been shot at and stabbed enough times to leave scars and have the Ghost making a hurried line to the nearest neutral med station as a matter of course. 

Hera had talked to her about it, saying that her vigour was appreciated but that she had to be careful. Kanan had talked to her, saying that she was worrying them. Even Chopper had talked to her. Well, cursed at her in Binary when she was dragged onto the ship slipping in and out of consciousness for the second time that month. 

Funnily enough, though, it had been Zeb out of everybody that had finally managed to get through to her. 

_I get it_ , he had said, sitting down on the edge of the bed in the med station. _Whatever happened on Mandalore — you were involved more than you’ve told us._

She had cringed back at that, her heart jumping into her throat, but he had just patted her arm, not looking at her.

 _We were all different people before we came onboard the Ghost_ , he’d continued. _And those people have their own histories. I was a member of the Lasat Royal Guard, did I ever tell you?_

His hand warm on her arm, she had shaken her head, wondering where he was going with this. 

Zeb had laughed, low and mournful as his ears drooped. _I was the last Captain, in fact, he’d continued. The last Captain, because I failed at my main task. I’d stopped the assassins, the poisons, the diseases — but in the end, I couldn’t stop the bombs. I failed, and the entire Royal Family died on my watch. And I hated myself for it._

His hand had slid down until it was holding hers gently. _I hated myself_ , he said, _and I thought that I should have died with them. That I deserved to die, for failing to protect them. That it was the only thing I could do to make up for it._

 _Then why are you still here?_ Sabine had asked, cringing immediately at the words as they slipped from her mouth. 

Zeb had just laughed again, still bitter and mourning. _Because I saw all the people that I was helping with Kanan and Hera,_ he said. _I saw the faces of the people we had helped, had saved, and I realized that while I may have failed the Royal Family, I wasn’t failing everyone. That while I had made mistakes that had hurt a lot of people, that didn’t mean that I was forever doomed to keep kriffing up. I stopped seeing the bodies of the Royal Family, and started seeing the families of the refugees we’d reunited, or the children that we helped cure._

He had squeezed her hand. _I know how you feel right now,_ he had said quietly. _Like you’ve kriffed up so bad that no amount of good deeds will ever wipe the books clean. Right now your kriff up seems to be all you’ve ever done. But if you live — if you keep helping people, keep doing good, that kriff up will get smaller and smaller, till it’s just a page, and then a paragraph, then a sentence and a letter and a kriffing period._ He had turned his head then, and just the memory of the worry in his eyes made a lump rise in Sabine’s throat. 

_But you gotta live, Sabine,_ he had said. _You gotta live long enough to do that much good. And if you keep trying to kill yourself — you can’t do both. You can’t make up for what you did, who you failed, if you die. If you die, that’s it, and no one can be helped by you._ He’d squeezed her hand again. _We’ve all been terrified,_ he’d said, his voice as gentle as Kanan’s had been, that awful night. _Can you promise us that you’ll stop? That you’ll start thinking more about the people you can help, and less about Mandalore?_

Maybe it had just been the painkillers, but Sabine had started crying then. Like a wound being lanced, the comfort that Zeb had extended to her somehow slipped past her defences and hit her right in the part of her heart that whispered about how she deserved to die for her crimes, shutting it up until they’d come back to Mandalore. 

Around her, the limbs writhed and she began to cry again at the memory, hot tears streaking down her cheeks and making the hands let go like they had been burned. Warmth that had been blooming in her chest began to spark.

Because Zeb had been right. When she had stopped looking back, and started really looking at what she was doing now, who she was helping now, the nightmares began to slow. The guilt gnawing on her guts like a voorpak had suddenly found its teeth dulled.

She was not cursed to destroy everything that she touched. She wasn’t meant to kill everyone she loved. Her hands and brain that had made that awful program that became a weapon had also been able to make bombs that freed the prisoners at an Imperial work camp, and save a vital sample of the cure for a disease that was ravaging a planet. It was able to pick apart encrypted transmissions, warning rebels within the Empire of a coming purge. She wasn’t a monster; at least, not entirely. She hadn’t been drained of all her goodness by the Empire until there was only black and white and bright bloody red.

Sabine opened her eyes, and saw darkness, with just a small prick of light high above her. But that little bit of light was all that she needed. Squeezing her hands into fists, she began to pull against the dead.

They fought her. Her guilty thoughts incarnated in the arms of those murdered by the Empire pulled at her arms and legs, demanding that she stay, that she sink further down. But Sabine was fighting against them now, and they weren’t as strong as they were before. Not compared to the memories filling her and pushing out that awful chill that had filled her before as she remembered.

Zeb, and Kanan, and Hera — Ezra too; they had all suffered at the hands of the Empire, and thought that she was still good. They thought that she was still good, because they had seen how she cared. How she fought for freedom and safety for all sentients. How she had fought on Dromund Kaas, for the children that she had hated and feared at first. How she had helped Ezra recover from losing his leg. Maybe they weren’t enough to completely wipe away the evil that she had done, but they at least started the process. 

She didn’t deserve to die. 

She didn’t deserve to die. She repeated the words in her head as she squirmed between the bodies, tearing herself free of their hands even as more tried to hold her in place.  
_I don’t deserve to die,_ she thought as the light continued to shine high above her. _I don’t deserve to die,_ she thought as she felt rough rock underneath her fingers. _I don’t deserve to die,_ she thought as she sucked in a breath of fresh air, clinging to the sides of the pit and shaking herself free of the last hands desperately clinging to her legs.

 _I’m sorry_ , she thought as she began to climb, her limbs burning and sweat trailing down her face. _But I don’t deserve to die. Not yet. Not while I can still make up for what I did to you._

The dead were wailing, but their voices became quieter and quieter as she got closer and closer to that light. Gasping, panting and sobbing, she reached the top of the pit and found blessed silence.

Flopping down onto her stomach, she pressed her sticky forehead to the cool stone floor. Light, soft and blue, emanated from the little tiles clustered underneath her, and a cool hand stroked her hair back from her hot forehead.

“Sabine,” a warm voice said. “I’m so very proud of you. Now, let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but sweet, hopefully. Let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Yes, that's right, I'm back! Sorry for the wait!
> 
> Anyways, hopefully you all like this chapter; a little sweetness before the pain, so to speak. Let me know what you think in the comments!
> 
> If you want to talk more I am still at my tumblr wondersmithofastronautalis.tumblr.com (yeah, I'm going to be there until it dies :P) or my pillowfort where I go under the name HLine; also, feel free to mess around on the series TV Tropes page, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/ChildrenOfTheForce !


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